They boldly take up residence in people’s homes, and are often seen lounging on furniture in the household.

They raise their offspring in flower beds, and inevitably, steal food — they are feral (wild) cats and they have become a huge nuisance to householders and other stakeholders.

According to managing director of Jamaica Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (JSPCA), Pamela Lawson, cats “are the single biggest problem Jamaicans are having right now, next to crime.

“Right now, I consider cats the new rats…they are overrunning our resort towns; they are extremely capable and excellent hunters, so they have a huge and negative effect and impact on the environment because they’re hunters. They are decimating a lot of the smaller indigenous animals [and also] contaminating the beaches because [to them] it’s just one huge litter box,” she told the Jamaica Observer on Sunday.

She said the cats are also a huge nuisance as they multiply at a dramatic rate, noting that one female cat with its offspring can produce hundreds of thousands of the animals in six years.

Lawson strongly advises people not to feed stray cats, pointing out that “the more you feed them, the more they’re going to produce, because nutritionally, they’re able and capable to produce more offspring.”

“I’m not saying you must mistreat them or starve them, but you have to be prepared for the impact. So when I get called, it’s because somebody has called me to say one cat came in, they started feeding them…inevitably, there’s a female in the bunch — if it’s even one or two cats — and before they know it…they have 12, 15, and I am not exaggerating,” she said.

Lawson noted that people living in gated communities are complaining bitterly about the huge cat population, noting that all it takes is one or two residents to have a cat that’s not sterile and it just balloons or they move and leave the cats behind, which is very common.

“So you will find a lot of communities now, gated communities which actually have traps. And I have some clients, every week you see them coming in with a cat or two in a trap.

She stressed, however, that when people trap the cats, they should not take them to other locations and dump them, “because you’re creating a problem for somebody else. That’s not fair…It’s not fair to the animal. It’s not fair to the people”.

She said she is aware that large resorts have dumped cats, but that nowadays many resorts are becoming more responsible about the cat problem.

“They are doing the trap, spay, neuter and release, [then maintenance in feral colonies] which have feeding stations or defined cat cafes, which is an area where food is put every day, twice a day,” she said, noting that tourists are allowed to interact with the cats if they so desire.

She noted that quite a few resorts now have these feral colonies — including Jewels Resort, Sandals, Couples Sans Souci — adding that the mechanism works and it keeps the cats healthier because they are dewormed and maintained. They also keep down the rodent population, and they are less likely to hunt, she added.

Lawson said that above all else, she would prefer residents take the cats in to the JSPCA.

“Just bring them in…We won’t turn you away because you’ve caught cats that are making your life a nightmare’ “, she said, noting that there are branches of the animal shelter in Kingston and St Andrew; Portmore, St Catherine; and Montego Bay, St James.

Terrestrial biologist Damion Whyte also raised the issue of people releasing into the wild feral cats which have been wreaking havoc in their homes.

“When they release it in the wild, the cat continues to do what cats do, which is being a predator. So, they will hunt a number of our wildlife [including] endemic snakes, birds and lizards, the Jamaican coney, and rat bats. They go in and they eat these stuff, and in some of these countries feral cats bring some of these animals to the brink of extinction. For example, I do work here where we have some special caves where we set up cameras and we monitor cats there, and we saw one cat catching between 10 to 15 rat bats throughout the night,” he said.

He said feral cats have also become a danger to the Jamaican Iguana, which is on the brink of extinction, noting that there is an ongoing programme to trap cats to prevent them preying on these animals.

Whyte said that while he will lend his box traps to people who reach out to him, and who don’t want to hurt the cats, he said the exercise can be difficult as cats are very good predators and are good at avoiding traps. “You have to be very smart,” he said.

One such person who has turned to Whyte for help in trapping cats is a homeowner in upper St Andrew who said she has been dealing with the nuisance of stray cats for “quite a number of years”. She said she managed to catch one, with Whyte’s guidance, and took the animal into the JSPCA.

“I have had, over the years, I don’t know how many litters of kittens born in the garden or a large plant pot on the upstairs balcony, in various places, and then those grow up considering this space their home,” she said, noting that the cats will go into other homes and also take up residence in open lots in the area.

“I’ve had a long problem with them. Sometimes it’s worse than others, and when it is mating season, my goodness! My backyard seems to be a special hangout spot because we get all the noise of the tomcats and sometimes fights and so on,” she said.

She noted when the cats stay outside, “it’s bad and not too bad”, but when they start going inside the house, that became a real issue for her, recalling one morning when she found a cat curled up on her couch in front of her television, and that others will sleep on the veranda furniture.

She said the line was, however, crossed when the cats started stealing food — half of a rotisserie chicken she had just purchased from the supermarket and placed on her kitchen counter. That was the last straw for her as when she decided then to take matters into her own hands and set the trap.