Dump closed despite last minute plea from cat rescue group

A cat rescue group has failed in its bid to get moretime to remove wild felines from a dump on Random Island.

The waste management committee there had a trench dug across the access road on Tuesday.

Feral Felines Rescue and Rehabilitation hadearlier removed four cats from the dump, but estimated there are another four to five remaining.

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"If they don't perish through starvation, they will start wandering into towns," said Kim Baker, a volunteer with the group.

"There is a possibility that the cats using the debris at the site as shelter may end up being buried alive."

If they do escape, she said unwanted litters could be a problem and felinediseases could be spread to household pets.

Feral Felines asked for more time to trap the cats, but the Random Island waste management committee saidthe dump closed New Year's Eve.

Committee chair Jim Cook said a contractor wason site Tuesday for a final cleanup.

"On the way out, he will ditch in front of the gate to prevent illegal dumping," said Cook, adding that garbage was left outside the gate just this past weekend.

"You know the old adage, time is money," he said. "We don't want to delay it. He could charge downtime for his equipment."

Plenty of notice

Cook saidthe Feral Felines group has known for months that the dump is shutting down.

He said once the road is closed, the volunteers can walk in with their cages, a distance of about 250 metres, if they want to search for remaining cats.

"We knew this was coming," saidKim Baker, but the group is "deeply saddened."

Now, she said, the site is accessible by ATV or snowmobile but the road will not be plowed,"so trapping these remaining animals has been made nearly impossible."

Baker estimatesthe group has removed about 70 wild cats from dumpsites between Catalina and Clarenville over the last couple of years.

If the cats are disease free, they are spayed or neutered and put up for adoption, or offered up as "barn buddies."

Baker said Feral Felines is building an intake shelter in Lethbridge,a project that is about 75 per cent complete.

As for the next step on Random Island, she said her group will try to provide food and shelter to cats there, but the outcome appears grim.

"There isn't a simple solution," said Eastern Waste Management, the agency that will supervise a final restoration of the Random Island dump in the spring.

ChairEd Grantsaid the road has to be closed or people will continue to dump there.

He said garbage from the 650 houses on Random Island will be taken to a transfer site in Clarenville, and then to Robin Hood Bay.