Missing Ono Island cats spark outrage

Sunday, March 23, 2008

By RYAN DEZEMBER

Staff Reporter

ONO ISLAND -- With people like the "Cat Lady" around, this gated community has generally been a pretty good place to be a feral cat.

There are frequent feedings, only a smattering of natural predators, and plenty of scrubby, rolling terrain in which to take cover.

But according to some people on the island, things changed last week with the arrival of a trapper hired to clear out as many of the wild Ono cats as he could.

Since then, tales of vanished pets and decimated colonies of free-roaming cats have persisted.

"I've just got a black hole in my heart," said the Cat Lady, whose name is Mary Hall.

She said that six of the 12 cats that she feeds in her yard are missing.

"I knew the stink that was going to come up," said Gary Casper, the licensed trapper who was hired by the Ono Island Property Owners Association to corral feral cats on the island as well as on state-owned property on Perdido Key. "The POA didn't know the stink that was going to come up."

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The Alabama Beach Mouse

From U.S. Fish & Wildlife Baldwin County Office

The Alabama beach mouse (ABM) is one of several subspecies of old field mice living only in coastal sand dune areas. The range of the Alabama beach mouse historically extended from Ono Island to Fort Morgan and included much of the Fort Morgan Peninsula on the Alabama Gulf coast.

These small light-colored mice burrow and excavate nests in dunes and are primarily active at night. Their diet consists of various plant seeds and insects. They prefer sand-covered slopes with patches of sea oats, beach grass, other grasses and herbs, as well as interior sand dune ridges.

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