Jesse Scheckner
There are a lot of stray cats roaming around PortMiami — well over 100, according to harbor officials who don’t really mind the large feline population but are concerned about their well-being and propagation.
The problem is that while Miami-Dade Animal Services personnel have been working to properly feed and sterilize the animals, others have been feeding them too, but incorrectly and illegally, leading to health and sanitary issues.
County Commissioners this week moved to address the matter, advancing a proposed ordinance by Danielle Cohen Higgins that would make it legal for people to feed stray animals at PortMiami if authorized through county-established programs. The measure, which pends a final vote by the full Commission, would also add a port-specific ban on abandoning animals. The county code already includes a general ban on the practice.
“While this item speaks to the humane treatment of these animals,” Cohen Higgins said Wednesday, “we’re simultaneously making sure there is population control taking place … to make sure our PortMiami does not become overrun by cats.”
Stray animals living at the port is hardly a new issue, according to Deputy Port Director Fredrick Wong. He told Florida Politics people have abandoned dogs, cats and chickens there as far back as the late ’90s.
“There’s a lot of greenery, a lot of trees and shade, and it kind of looks like a paradise,” he said. “But there’s a lot of cat lovers who come out here and overfeed the cats. One person would come at six in the morning and give them a whole bag of food. Then another person will come at nine o’clock and give them more.”
PortMiami has partnered with Animal Services on a “Cat Feeder Program” that trains volunteers to provide the proper amount of food and monitor the cats’ eating habits, per a memo from Miami-Dade Chief Operating Officer Jimmy Morales. But because the program conflicts with existing county ordinances prohibiting the feeding of animals at PortMiami, an amendment is needed so those trained volunteers can continue to do so.
Euthanizing the animals is out of the question, thanks to Commissioner Kionne McGhee’s “Save Charlie Act,” which Commissioners adopted Dec. 15, 2020, to establish a no-kill policy at county animal shelters.
Under the guidelines proposed in Cohen Higgins’ measure, only people with a county-issued volunteer badge will be permitted to feed the cats, and the feeding would take place in specific areas at designated times.
This will make animals healthier by not overfeeding them and reduce the spread of feces and vomit around the port, Wong said. But the more regulated approach will also enable Animal Services to better capture, fix and return them.
“We’re not going to take them away and send them to the Everglades, but we’re going to teach people how to correctly and appropriately feed the cats on a schedule, and then when they’re linked up to that routine, then we’re going to trap them and spay or neuter them,” he said. “Then we can do the little clip on their ear and bring them back here so they can live out their natural lives.”
According to the Humane Society of Greater Miami, there are more than 300,000 homeless cats in Miami-Dade County.
