“Alley” cats, homeless and roaming the streets, yards, businesses, parking lots and barns of Butler County. These feral felines produce an astounding number of kittens.

While home and business owners often welcome the cats for the pest control they provide, many of those helpless kittens born to them end up being euthanized at the local animal shelter. It’s a sad situation, but something is being done to help.

The Butler County Humane Society is actively taking steps to effectively and humanely deal with feral “alley cat” populations.

BCHS volunteers like Annie Crenshaw and Kandys Killough have already been working to trap some of these homeless cats, have them spayed and returned to their habitat.

And now the BCHS is bringing a Trap-Neuter-Return Feral Cats Seminar to Greenville on Wednesday, August 11. The information demonstration and presentation, led by Dr. Rachel Tears of the Alabama Animal Alliance in Montgomery, is set for noon until 2:30 p.m. at Greenville City Hall.

The public, along with law enforcement and city and county officials, are encouraged to attend.

“The Trap-Neuter-Return Program is not about ‘rescuing’ cats,” said Crenshaw. “It’s about making our community a better place with better animal population control. We want to lower the stray cat intake and euthanasia at the Greenville Animal Shelter – which reduces costs for animal control since your tax dollars pay for shelter, staff, and work procedures including euthanizing.”

Crenshaw says the program creates a less hostile environment for the feral cats, who serve as natural rodent exterminators.

“Why round them up and euthanize them when you can spay and neuter the adults and return them to their environments where they can continue to keep rodents under control?” she said.

“You also end up with less complaints to animal control officers about nuisance behaviors linked to animal during mating seasons, and the officers end up with less unpleasant work having to do all this euthanasia. It is a win-win situation all around.”

A sandwich lunch will be available at 11:30 a.m. prior to the program; anyone interested in the lunch and all those planning to attend the seminar are asked to call or email Crenshaw at 334-382-6959 or anniecrenshaw@centurytel.net.