Though the feral cat problem continues to plague Carbon County, Barb Greenzweig of Forgotten Felines presented the Bowmanstown Borough with an idea to help curb the roaming colonies.

"I've been a resident of Palmerton for over 22 years. We noticed we had a problem with cats running around the neighborhood and we decided to step up and do something about it," she told the board. Greenzweig is on the board of directors for the organization and has been using a trap-and-release program in the area. "We started to use humane traps and then take the cats to be spayed or neutered along with rabies and distemper vaccine. We then bring them back to where they were trapped and release them."She told the board the latest section of town to implement the idea went from nine cats down to seven."Cats who live outdoors tend to have shorter life spans than indoor cats for obvious reasons."She encouraged the board to get the word out to residents and see if volunteers in the borough could be gathered to trap the feral cats and bring them to the clinic for the financial assisted procedure."Forgotten Felines works on a sliding scale fee," she said.Since conducting trap and release, Greenzweig said over 42 cats in the area have been treated."Through the support of people getting the word out and volunteering, we were able to do this."She told the board to peruse the Palmerton Cat Project Facebook page for more details."We can use whatever funds we can get. We are trying to get people to advocate for it," she said. "These cats didn't ask to be there. This is everyone's problem, unfortunately. We will work to plug people into resources."She encouraged the board to contact her to help get volunteers organized for the Bowmanstown area."Our goal is to not have cats breeding with reckless abandonment throughout your area."Shortly after the presentation, the board discussed a draft of a "pet" ordinance which would allow Mayor William Ravert to issue tickets to those not in compliance with keeping pets confined to an owner's property."The reason we are looking at this is because we have cats at large," said Councilman Robert Moyer.Council President Kara Scott questioned how the ordinance would help curb the cat problem."If there's an ordinance, the mayor can write tickets," said Councilman Dean Thomas."How would it be enforced? We can't chase cats around," Scott said. "I'm not sure if this is enforceable."Council Vice President Pam Leiby questioned the cost of creating the ordinance and enforcing it."Do we have money in the budget to do this?"Moyer said there aren't funds set aside in the budget for an ordinance."How will we know if it's a feral cat or a pet? How will we know whose cat it is?" asked Ravert. "The cat can't tell me."Ravert told the board the Forgotten Felines program should be examined more closely and residents should be made aware of the trap-and-release option."Our office staff should put on the Facebook page that we had a representative talk to the council and we are now looking for volunteers to trap feral cats. The borough doesn't have funds, but anyone who wants to donate to the project can."