Deaths of Cats Stir Alarm at Hospital

For years, the feral cat colony at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center has been living a relatively stress-free existence. The animals have 78 acres to roam, access to cool, dark basements and regular feedings by cat-loving employees.

But in one seven-day period this month, three dead cats were found on the center’s grounds. Some believe they were poisoned.

“Someone is killing them,” said Jeanne Young, a nuclear medicine technologist who has been caring for the cats for 12 years. “It’s extremely suspicious. We’ve only had one dead cat in four years, and that one was hit by a car in the rain.”

Hospital officials decided Tuesday to increase security patrols around the cats’ feeding areas and to send e-mails to all employees asking them to report any suspicious activity or additional dead cats.

“We still don’t know the cause of death of these cats,” said Calvin Kwan, a hospital administrator. “It’s all speculation at this point.”

Young found two of the three dead cats, the most recent one over the July 4 weekend.

“The last one I found was one of my favorites,” she said. “I noticed something black in the ivy and thought, ‘Oh no, please don’t be a cat.’ ”

The cat had foam around its mouth and dilated pupils, she said. She saw no blood and felt no broken bones. The other cat she found was in a similar condition. “There was no damage on the outside,” Young said. “It looked like a perfectly healthy cat that just fell over and died.”

Young began caring for the feral cats after seeing a skinny cat with tortoiseshell markings and an abscess on its leg. She felt sorry for the cat and took it to a veterinarian.

More than a decade later, she and six others, calling themselves the “Tortie Foundation” after that first cat, regularly care for the felines during their off hours at numerous feeding stations throughout the complex.

The group pays for food, veterinary care and for spaying and neutering at a cost of more than $1,000 a month.

But some question the wisdom of allowing the colony.

The cats, like other wild animals, tend to carry fleas, which have infested buildings at the hospital, including a women’s health center

Young said the hospital has typically dealt with the problem by trapping the cats once or twice a year and taking them to county animal shelters, where they most likely were euthanized.

Hospital spokeswoman Julie Rees said she only recalled one time, in January, when the flea problem became so great that the hospital asked county animal control to trap a few cats. Young estimated the number was 18 to 20.

During that same month, the hospital attached a memo to employees’ paychecks warning that anyone found feeding the cats would be disciplined or fired.

“We were having continuing problems with employee health,” said Kenneth Trevett, a signer of the memo who is president of the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute on the hospital’s grounds.

Trevett said the hospital had received between 20 and 40 complaints from employees citing allergic reactions or flea bites. One employee filed a workers’ compensation case because of a continuing allergic reaction from the cat dander, he said.

“It’s about weighing the balance between employee and patient health and being humane to the cats,” he said.

Since then, groups on both sides have agreed to a “trap, neuter and return” policy and not to call animal control officials.

The colony once numbered in the hundreds, but now consists of about 75 cats, Young said.

There are about 4 million feral cats in Los Angeles County, according to the Feral Cat Alliance, a nonprofit group devoted to helping the animals.

The number represents an “epidemic” to Bill Dyer, the Southern California regional director of In Defense of Animals, a national animal rights organization.

“It’s all over the place in Southern California,” he said. “The main phone calls I get are all about feral cats.”