Dear Sir,

When the Bermuda Feline Assistance Bureau (BFAB) first started, they assured us that the feral cat problem would be gone in ten years. What rubbish!

Here we are, twenty-plus years later and the problem is as bad, or worse, than ever — a total disaster!

Feral cats have been a scourge on this tiny Island for well over twenty years, devastating our desperately struggling wildlife, and I have always felt it is a total disgrace that BFAB has been able to maintain its status as a charity, when what it actually does is so destructive.

The trap/neuter/spay/release programme has long been discredited by serious scientific studies, and many now consider this approach bordering on being cruel to the cats.

After all, how do you explain to a cat that all the nasty, painful and scary things you are going to do to it is for its own good! In my view, the genuinely kind thing to do to with these “pest” cats would be gentle and humane euthanasia — one quiet sleep, no scary other stuff.

I have always been bothered, too, by what seems to me to be a very traumatic procedure of trapping, neutering and then releasing feral cats back into the wild — to annoy residents, destroy our wildlife and mess up farmers’ fields, as well as to a lifetime of fighting other cats!

Some time ago, a visiting wildlife vet saw the feeding station at Astwood Park and was totally appalled that such a thing could even exist in Bermuda, with the serious health hazards it posed both to domestic cats which might visit and, even more seriously, to people, especially pregnant women, who could be susceptible to a variety of very nasty cat-carried diseases.

Astwood Park used to be a favourite place for weddings as well as outside events organised by the Southampton Princess.

Now with 60-plus bothersome cats at the BFAB feeding station, these events are rarely held — with guests complaining of disgusting cat poop all over the grass.

Astwood Park, both as a park for walking and as an outdoor venue, has seriously lost its appeal and our Government should be extremely concerned about that.

The farmers report serious damage to their crops by feral cat diggings — no joke, this is a big economic loss for them.

The BFAB programme is becoming less and less popular with the general public, as it has so clearly and abysmally failed.

In fact, I understand that cats in general are becoming less popular — and less adoptable — again thanks to BFAB.

In the past, sorry to say, Environment Ministers have simply caved in to the hysteria and nastiness thrown at them by BFAB organisers and supporters. Time to get really tough, I think, and get this troubling and apparently endless problem sorted out for once and for all.

I think it is vital for the health of this community for Government and BFAB to get together, sensibly, and work to come up with a genuinely constructive solution to finally get rid of these depressing and unhealthy blots on our landscape.

I’m tired of watching this horror show.

Penny Hill