If ever there were a saint of abandoned and feral cats, it might well be Jill Rowlette.
The Gilroy woman devotes countless hours caring for three colonies of cats that live in and along the fringes of Christmas Hill Park, site of Gilroy Garlic Festival, which kicks off on July 29.
Behind all the garlic and glitter, under canopies of poison oak or huddled in the old Miller Barn, scores of frightened felines probably want nothing more than for the festival to go some place else.
In addition to the crowds and noise, “It’s because of all the ATVs running around and the fences go up and they get disoriented,” said Rowlette, a former Carmel real estate agent involved in animal rescue and welfare for more than three decades.
Even in the best of circumstances, the lives of feral and abandoned domestic cats in the wild are tenuous. Without human help, they must find food and water and they can fall prey to hawks, bobcats, mountain lions and coyotes.
Still, Rowlette, whose band volunteers numbers about six, says the colonies at Christmas Hill are in very good shape these days and do not breed—at all.
“I really want people to know that they all have been fixed, we don’t allow any babies. We remove every single friendly [domestic] cat that gets dumped; the ones that are dumped are not feral and we get them out as soon as they come in.”
How? Well, Rowlette shows up every morning and returns in the evening, seven days a week; she sees the new arrivals and knows them from the true feral cats.
Wild or domestic, they all get fixed and cannot reproduce. They also get rabies shots and have chips implanted in them and get one ear tip clipped, signalling they’ve been fixed.
Domestics are removed for rescue adoptions and captured ferals are fixed, then released, she said.
“I have seen colonies where they are allowed to breed and breed and the babies are sick and the mothers are sick, but these [Gilroy] cats are healthy,” she said, precisely because they do not reproduce.
Rowlette explained her tireless devotion this way: “I really feel bad for these cats, they didn’t ask for this; they would love to be at someone’s house or ranch or somewhere safe.”
Cat colonies have been around Christmas Hill Park for years, according to city officials who continue to be vexed by the critters and people who abandon them.
At Gilroy City Hall, the view of what Rowlette and her colleagues do is mixed. However, one thing is certain: from the city’s perspective, homeless cats are viewed as interlopers in the natural scheme of things.
Parks and Landscape supervisor Bill Headley, who has nearly 40 years with the city, said residents sometimes dump house cats at parks, and these are mostly the ones Rowlette and others assist.
“They are helping those cats in that situation,” Headley said, acknowledging the good done for the animals. “But they are not helping the habitat,” he said, referring to the imbalance created by the introduction of domestic animals into a natural habitat.
The cats occupy a niche that would otherwise be for be ground squirrels, rabbits, mice and other small mammals, according to Headley.
And while the cats might assist in keeping varmint populations down, he said he’d rather see nature’s predators do that job.
“They mean well,” he said of the cat helpers, “but it’s only a partial help. Cats in and of themselves are a problem. And cats are not wildlife, I’m sorry,” he said.
In cat colonies at city parks, the city corporation yard and other locations, Headley estimated the population at more than 70 individuals. And, like wild animals, they move around depending on the availability of food, water, shelter, mates and predators, he said.
As successful as Rowlette and her group are at preventing cats from breeding, it still goes on, according to Headley.
He reported two litters he has seen in the past two months and six kittens recently found near a water channel by a California Conservation Corps crew.
Over the years, the city has spent significant hours and resources capturing and transporting felines to the county animal shelter in San Martin or the humane society in San Jose.
“They no longer want them,” Headley said. “We don’t know where to take them.”
For her part, Rowlette said she and her group are very good at finding homes for the cats they rescue from life in the wild.
Last week, she noticed a newly abandoned adult female in one of the park colonies, and then saw the cat had two kittens. One died. The mother and the other kitten were captured and sent to a foster home for later adoption.
Rowlette’s day among the tabbies, tigers and toms begins at 7:30 a.m. and she’s out there again in the evening. And when the cats see her coming, it’s like watching a feline pied piper gather her pride.
“I’ve done this wherever I’ve lived,” Rowlette said. “I’ve always done animal rescue.”
I feed 15 feral cats. Are there any cat colonies in Gilroy? Thank you.