At least 44 cats captured at Bas-Caraquet shipyard

The much talked about Bas-Caraquet shipyard is back in focus this week, but for much furrier reasons.

A clowderof feral cats has taken up refuge at the shipyard, leaving some residents to take care of the problem themselves.

One of those residents is Helene McLaughlin, a cat rescue volunteer, who decided to see what was up after seeing posts about the cats on Facebook.

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"I went there and took a look at the situations first, and there was a sea of cats," said McLaughlin.

While McLaughlin was unsure how many cats were living at the shipyard, she notes that so far 44 have been caught.

Twenty of those cats were taken to Shippagan veterinarian Carole McGrath who said, all things considered, the feral felines were in good health.

"They're in pretty good shape. It's kind of surprising there's not much disease installed yet in that group of cats," said McGrath.

"Usually they have ear mites, fleas and they have rhinotracheitis, which is a virus almost like a cold, but those cats they don't have that."

McLaughlin took a lead in catching the cats. She already had live traps and borrowed some from a neighbouring shelter.

"We started catching them, a few at a time, and sterilizing them and trying to get the ones who are less feral, who are good cats, we're trying to get them adopted," said McLaughlin.

While some of the cats were understandably wary of coming into contact with humans, this wasn't the case across the board.

"The big ones come out, because so many people feed them now and they're used to it. So when they see cars coming in they all go for the cars," said McLaughlin.

Some of the cats have found homes or are looking for them, McLaughlin has 14 at her house, while some of the more feral cats have been returned to the shipyard.