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By Max Jaeger
Brooklyn Daily
First they came for the kitties.
A group of wild cats living in shanty town in Plumb Beach faces eviction by the National Park Service, which says the cats pose a danger to native species.
But the cats’ human caretakers — who built them an elaborate wood-and-cardboard habitat in the woods and feed them regularly — argue that the feral felines are doing more good than harm.
“Do you know there’s a rat problem in New York City? You know where there’s no rat problem? Plumb Beach,” said Janelle Barabash of Midwood, who has been caring for them for months along with several other cat fanciers.
The colony consists of 33 cats, about 50 shelter structures, and three feeding stations, and has been a haven for wild and abandoned cats for 11 years, according to Nancy Rogers, another caretaker.
The National Park Service, which has jurisdiction over the beach, said the maleficent mousers threaten area wildlife.
“For a national park to have any exotic species that could a pose threat to native wildlife is in direct conflict with national laws,” said Doug Adamo, a biologist with the federal agency. “It is conservatively estimated that 1 billion birds killed by domestic cats in U.S. alone.”
Adamo did not have numbers specific to Brooklyn or estimates of the body count Plumb Beach’s pugnacious pussycats may have racked up over the last decade.
A Parks Service spokesman said the agency discovered the shanty town last month, but cat advocates say the feds have known about the feline favela for a long time.
A sign recently posted near the colony at a parking lot along the Belt Parkway stated that the feds would claw back the land on June 13 by “dismantling” the kitties’ shanties. The Park Service plans to capture the cats using humane traps and then demolish the wood-and-cardboard shelters, Adamo said.
After wrangling with the caretakers, the feds extended the deadline for a week as a show of good faith — it will also help the caretakers transport their charges to nearby shelters while the cats find a permanent home.
But the cats’ caretakers say the task isn’t that easy. Most of the felines are “true ferals,” meaning they avoid people at all costs, Rogers said. Only about eight are adoptable, she said. The coterie of cat-lovers is scrambling to figure out what to do with the rest of the colony, possibly evacuating them to rural areas upstate.
Whatever happens, the cat-tivists say there is no way they can clear out the kitties by June 20.
“It took a year and a half to trap and spay or neuter the population,” said Rogers. “I don’t know how Doug [Adamo] thinks we’ll do this in eight days.”
The Park Service plans to turn over any trapped cats to the caretakers, Adamo said.
