It’s become a familiar scene for Pruitt. For the last several months, she has been a constant presence at Phoenix’s City Council meetings, where she called for the city to spend money addressing Phoenix’s out-of-control stray cat problem. She wants Phoenix to shoulder some of the burden of trapping, neutering and releasing these cats — known as TNR — and also for educating residents about how to deal with them humanely.
But this Wednesday was different. Instead of waiting for her turn to speak during the public comment portion of a council meeting, Pruitt was talking to a much more interested crowd at a brewery less than a mile away.
Her years of advocacy had paid off, at least in a small way. Pruitt, who owns the advocacy brand She’s All Cat, gathered with more than 30 cat advocates in Grand Avenue Brewing Company to celebrate Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego proclaiming May 21 “Feline Awareness and Education Day.”
Also at the event were a few local luminaries. Donning a headband with pink cat ears and a blue-and-green sequin dress, Pruitt introduced Phoenix poet laureate Rosemarie Dombrowski, who read the Lawrence Ferlinghetti poem “The Cat.” Also attending were Republican state Sen. Shawnna Bolick, who has sponsored several pieces of animal welfare legislation, and Democratic congressional candidate and self-proclaimed “cat dad” Amish Shah.
With Gallego tied up at a city council meeting, a city staffer read the proclamation to the crowd.
“Millions of cats — both owned and unowned — are part of our communities, and their well-being is tied to the neighborhoods in which they live,” the proclamation read. “Education is a vital tool in addressing the root causes of feline overpopulation, neglect, and misunderstanding and fostering responsible pet ownership and human care for all cats.”
Pruitt told Phoenix New Times she was “excited” about the proclamation, which she thought showed the city “acknowledging that we have a crisis.” She had been pushing for it. “It doesn’t cost any money,” she said, “but it also brings attention to all of it, to all of these different people.”
She also thinks the city may have issued the proclamation in part “to shut me up,” she said. She doesn’t plan on shutting up or stopping her advocacy.
“It’s a very small step,” she said. “But it’s a huge step for advocacy in the long run.”
The Valley cat problem
Pruitt guesses Maricopa County has about 500,000 to a million outdoor cats roaming the streets of the Valley. Constant births and the problems of disease and animal cruelty keep the population in flux.Despite the proclamation, the city hasn’t put its money where its mouth is. The work of controlling the cat population has fallen to passionate cat advocates themselves, and they often pay out of pocket for their efforts. Sitting around a high-top table decorated with cat stickers and a large centerpiece of cupcakes with caketoppers in the shape of cats, Chele’s Cat Care owner Chele Ford swapped stories with fellow advocate Anne During.
They’ve nursed unhealthy kittens back to health in their homes and seen young boys “kittennapping” cats from their moms. Ford’s organization, which fosters and finds homes for outdoor cats captured during TNR efforts, has spent a significant amount of money on the procedures. In the last year alone, Chele’s Cat Care spent more than $3,000 on TNR efforts.
This story isn’t uncommon among Phoenix’s cat advocates and trappers, who are hardly making a dent in the problem. Pruitt believes there is a more systematic solution to Phoenix’s cat overpopulation: Education.
The average Phoenix resident is generally uninformed about the city’s cats and the intricate web of cat colonies. But Pruitt believes that more community education will take a bigger bite out of the problem.
She does this now, but on a smaller scale than she’d like. She visits classrooms to speak to children, drops by community centers to speak to residents and even speaks at corporate functions about the importance of TNR and how to protect cats.
While the proclamation is a positive sign, Pruitt has been pushing the city council to help her expand this program. With funding from the city, she’d be able to go into classrooms at least three days a week and have several staffers help her achieve that mission.
City funding doesn’t appear to be in the cards just now. Phoenix is looking to save money in light of looming federal funding cuts. That means the job of curbing the city’s cat population will be in the hands of Phoenix’s cat ladies, for at least a little while longer.
