Since I moved to Carbon County I have enjoyed listening to residents sharing their concerns and ideas with their elected officials.

One of the most common issues I hear about, regardless of the borough, is the feral cat population.Last month, I covered a meeting in Weatherly where mayor Thomas Connors, who runs the Carbon County Animal Shelter, said that multiple dead cats were found on the streets of the borough. It was shocking, but all too common in this area.In September, I watched a woman from Coaldale bring a paper shopping bag full of a cat's excrement and set it on the desk of one of the council members. She said a colony near her home had left it where her children played.And hearing stories about feral cats, I am reminded of the vital importance of having cats spayed and neutered.At this point, it is ridiculous and irresponsible to not have a cat fixed. And we owe a lot of thanks to the people who perform the operations. Most of them are discounted, like the Eastern Pennsylvania Animal Association in Monroe County.Let me say, there was always a cat in my house as a child. I could never imagine being cruel to them.I knew my parents had their two cats "fixed," and couldn't see why anyone wouldn't do the same - purely from the standpoint of the smell and aggression that cats can exhibit when they're not neutered.Cats were not bred to live in the wild in the state of Pennsylvania.Ask bird watchers - cats can disrupt the natural food chain and have been responsible for wiping out entire species of birds.There's a wide range of very passionate opinions out there on how to handle feral cats. And a lack of agreement on how to deal with the problem is difficult.Of course there are those who believe that euthanasia is the solution. In Coaldale, that is just what they have tried this year.On one hand, there are those who believe every cat can find a home. These are normally folks who value animals' lives more than most humans. I certainly sympathize with these folks - humans can be pretty terrible sometimes.The alternatives just take too much time to actually reduce the number of cats. I have so much respect for the volunteers at Carbon County Friends of Animals who have created an amazing haven for their animals. Oftentimes people suggest farms, but many of them are full of cats these days as well.Advocates of the trap, neuter, release method insist that it does control population, though it is on a longer time scale than many neighbors can deal with. With that method, a group of feral kittens are fixed to prevent them from reproducing.It's a good idea, but it still doesn't do enough to hold responsible those who let the cats become a problem in the first place. Ultimately it is the responsibility of all cat owners to ensure that their pets are spayed and neutered.