Army of volunteers care for feral cats on Long Island

‘My parents put up with a lot,” said Stephanie Notarnicola. “I kept bringing in these old, decrepit cats. Foster cages covered almost every surface of my bedroom.”

Notarnicola, now 30, said she was 8 years old when she started caring for a colony of feral cats behind her parents’ ice cream shop in Shirley. For years, she devoted her life to the stray cats roaming near restaurant dumpsters and other neighborhood spots — sacrificing her personal life in the process.

“I had been up early for vet appointments and late trapping cats for neutering. I didn’t really have a social life,” said Notarnicola.

Notarnicola has since moved out of her family’s Massapequa home and lives in Central Islip. But as the director of Community Cats of Long Island, a nonprofit she established in 2021, Notarnicola remains committed to her feline friends — so much so that she has transformed the one-acre wooded lot where she and her boyfriend live into a haven for special-needs cats, complete with heated structures and an outdoor enclosure.

Notarnicola is one of an almost invisible army of people — including trappers, veterinarians, transporters, colony caregivers, fosters, rehabilitators and educators — who work tirelessly to care for “community” cats, or strays, on Long Island.

Numbers have grown

The exact number of stray cats on the Island is not known. But the Town of Hempstead estimates its community cat population at 30,000 to 50,000. Nationally, the nonprofit animal rights organization PETA estimates there are 60 million to 100 million homeless felines in the United States — a number rivaling, if not exceeding, that of owned cats across America and one that has climbed with the recent abandonment of pet cats after an adoption boom during the pandemic.

For some, the proliferation of cats roaming the outdoors can be seen as a nuisance or a threat to neighborhood wildlife. But even for those who find them to be enchanting, the goal — according to advocates — is to shrink their numbers.

“Living outdoors is not their choice, it is their predicament. They endure profound suffering with starvation, illness and injury,” said Dr. Gay Senk, the founding veterinarian of Farmingdale Dog & Cat Clinic. “Cats are domestic animals and not meant to be fending for themselves.”

While removing stray cats may reduce their population in a given area temporarily, experts said it is ultimately counterproductive, as other cats will simply adopt the vacant territory, a phenomenon known as “the vacuum effect.”

TNR: Trap, neuter, return

Instead, advocates call for trapping, neutering and returning the cats to their environment — a process commonly referred to as TNR — which they say has a big impact in decreasing the size and number of cat colonies, as feral females can have up to three litters a year.

“If you feed them, you must spay and neuter, vaccinate for rabies and ear-tip them,” said Senk, referring to the practice of notching a cat’s left ear at a 45-degree angle to indicate they have been fixed. “They must be returned to a managed colony, where caregivers provide food, water, shelter and monitor for newcomers. Over time, attrition reduces their numbers.”

Bellmore resident John Debacker began his career trapping cats 12 years ago as a Seaford high school student, when he rescued four stray kittens near his home. Today, it’s his full-time job. He is contacted regularly by local town shelters, as well as rescue organizations and the police, for both routine and emergency situations.

“I’ve gotten called to remove a cat from the center median on the Southern State Parkway and have had the MTA turn off its power to remove a stray from the tracks,” he said.

And he said he can’t keep up with the demand: “I barely have time for all the calls. It’s out of control,” he said.

He is helped by people like Joanne Monez, director and founder of the nonprofit All About Spay Neuter Inc., who says the organization has performed TNR on 600 to 1,000 feral cats annually for the past 20 years.

Monez, a lifelong animal lover, became active in the TNR world after she moved to Massapequa in 1991.

“There were a lot of cats in the area,” she said. “I saw a neighbor living across the canal behind me feeding them. She was the one who introduced me to trapping.”

Monez, who worked as a training director for an electrical apprenticeship program before retiring, trapped her first litter of kittens at Jones Beach State Park.

“Before they were all adopted, I kept them in my bathtub because I wasn’t yet set up with cages,” she recalled. “More and more, people began calling me for help.”

Clinic on wheels

Ten years ago, Monez opened a storefront adoption center on Merrick Road in Massapequa. Then in 2017, she spotted an online listing for a 40-foot bus outfitted for spaying and neutering and decided to purchase it sight unseen from its owner in Florida.

She now runs an appointment-only clinic two to three times a month in the refurbished vehicle, which she camps outside a gas station in Bellmore.

“It is all volunteers working on the bus — vets, vet students and techs — and I do most of the trapping,” said Monez, who pays for the parking spot with funds her organization receives as contracted trappers for the Town of North Hempstead and Village of East Hills TNR programs.

Among her volunteers is Senk, who is considered a leader in Long Island’s efforts to control its stray cat population.

Senk’s dedication to stray felines followed a 14-year career as an equine veterinarian, specifically as a reproduction expert for the racehorse industry.

“I felt a deep sense of humanity, a desire to fulfill a need,” explained the two-year member of the U.S. Equestrian Team of her redirection, contrasting the elite thoroughbreds she treated with ownerless cats living out a shortened, hard-knocks existence on the streets.

More than 30 years later, Senk’s compassion hasn’t waned. Along with the care she continues to provide, she is focused on passing on what she has learned to the next generation of veterinarians, including students in Long Island University’s nascent veterinary program, by reaching out to provide them with hands-on experience in the field.

“You see more pathology working on feral cats than you’ll ever see in private practice,” she said.

M*A*S*H for cats

Another group of volunteers gathers monthly at a Huntington veterinary hospital to spay and neuter stray cats.

Joanne Anderson, a retired teacher who volunteers as the outreach coordinator for Last Hope Animal Rescue and Rehabilitation, likened the organization’s monthly TNR clinic to a scene from the old television show M*A*S*H, which last aired regularly in 1983.

“It’s like an incredible assembly line,” she said. “There is the prep area, waiting room, sedation station, spaces where the surgery is done and recovery rooms. It takes 20 volunteers, from the vets to the people who help apply heating pads and blankets after the operations, and that does not include the trappers.” (Anderson said the veterinary office asked to remain anonymous.)

Each month, she estimates her group arranges to spay or neuter between 30 and 50 cats.

“For many, it’s the only time they see a vet,” Anderson noted. “We can also give them painkillers and ear-mite medication. While they are under, it’s a golden opportunity to pull a bad tooth or fix a hernia.”

The animal rescue, which is based in Wantagh, also gives out vouchers through its Fix-A-Feral program, which helps defray the cost of TNR for feral cats. For $15, people can bring cats to a half-dozen locations across Long Island, including Helping PAW in East Meadow and Island Rescue in Bay Shore. So far this year, Anderson said, Last Hope, which is funded through grants, donations, fundraising events and a thrift shop, has given out about 600 vouchers.

Participants are instructed to trap every cat in the colony, return the fixed felines to their original location and to continue to feed them. “It is not a good-riddance program. It is part of the deal that you are going to take care of them,” said Anderson. (For more information, visit the animal rescue’s website at lasthopeanimalrescue.org.)

2,000 inquiries a year

“We have to think of feral cats as part of the ecosystem,” said Elyise Hallenbeck, director of community initiatives for Bideawee, which serves New York City and Long Island. With a team of only five — three employees and two volunteers — for such a large region, Hallenbeck said she feels the nonprofit’s feral cat program can make the biggest impact by providing information and resources.

Bideawee’s Feral Cat Initiative Help Desk fields 1,500 to 2,000 inquiries every year, with over 9,000 colonies registered. The organization also offers webinars tackling subjects ranging from how to bottle-feed kittens to TNR.

Bideawee also supports TNR groups and individuals. “They are the boots on the ground,” said Hallenbeck. “We make sure they have everything they need to be successful, like providing low-cost and free spay and neuter appointments, loaning and delivering traps, and offering free transport. There are a lot of puzzle pieces to performing TNR. We hold their hand to make it manageable and accessible.”

Hallenbeck and other advocates who care for Long Island’s feral cats say that more help is always needed. Caring volunteers are in high demand across the population-control process, from feeding to fixing to fostering.

“This isn’t your neighbor Jim’s backyard problem — it’s a far-reaching problem,” said Hallenbeck. And, she noted, “It’s easier than you think to be part of the solution.”