Pam Kalish quietly reaches down to check the bait at the back of a trap.
"No cats," she says as she begins to scoop more tuna into a dish inside the rusted wire cage.
Suddenly, she is interrupted as the door on a nearby trap snaps shut and a sheet covering the crate begins to shake.
"We got one!" Kalish shouts. "He just went in. Did you hear that?"
Under the sheet, a frazzled kitten with shabby white and orange fur is lurching at the metal container. "It's a little guy," Kalish says.
She moves the cage out of sight and uses a flashlight to continue checking traps in a dark field near a Phoenix trailer park.
By the end of the night, Kalish and another volunteer from the Animal Defense League of Arizona caught 22 feral cats that will be sterilized and released back into the area near Baseline Road and 19th Avenue.
While it's not a perfect remedy, animal advocates are pushing the "Trap, Neuter, Return," program as the only humane solution to combat the Valley's growing feral-cat problem.
Experts estimate there are as many as 200,000 feral cats across the Valley, and those who work with them say the situation is getting worse. As Valley foreclosures increased, many residents left their pets behind.
"These cats just don't come out of nowhere . . . there's a lot of abandonment," said Kalish, a retired electrical engineer who traps cats several nights a week.
The problem is compounded by a lack of action by cities and by the county. Although leash laws call for Maricopa County Animal Care and Control and cities to pick up stray dogs, they don't say anything about cats, said agency spokeswoman Aprille Hollis.
"The problem is there are no state or county laws about stray cats," she said.
For $96, Animal Care and Control will impound and euthanize cats that are brought in, but Hollis said the agency encourages residents to use Trap, Neuter, Return, or TNR programs offered by the Animal Defense League of Arizona and another group called Altered Tails.
The groups generally ask volunteers to borrow traps, catch the cats and bring them into a sterilization clinic. But for some, the idea of releasing sterilized cats back into neighborhoods isn't a solution.
Since a neighbor began leaving food and water for stray cats, Marlene Barber of east Mesa said her yard has become a giant litter box, and she's overwhelmed by the stench. Barber estimates at least 30 feral cats have moved onto her block near Greenfield Road and Southern Avenue.
The city and county refuse to help, saying it's an issue for the homeowners association. And the Sunland Village HOA, won't take action against the man who feeds the cats, she said.
"Frankly, I think they need to be trapped and humanely euthanized," Barber said. "Everywhere we've turned for help, we're not getting anything."
TNR advocates say euthanizing is too expensive and will simply leave a void for another colony of feral cats to fill.
"It's going to cost buckets of money and it's not going to work," said Stephanie Nichols-Young, president of the Animal Defense League of Arizona.
Sterilizing the cats will also moderate some of their behaviors, causing them to roam less and not yowl or spray their territory, Nichols-Young said.
Nichols-Young said TNR is becoming more accepted as the only humane and effective solution to the feral-cat problem.
Since 2000, the number of feral cats captured and sterilized in the Valley has jumped nearly 1,000 percent, from 1,200 to over 13,000 last year, according to numbers from the Animal Defense League.
The numbers point to the need to change leash laws to include cats and allow the county and cities to act, some neighbors and animal-rights advocates say. Hollis said she thinks there would be widespread support based on the number of complaints Animal Care and Control receives.
And some advocates for TNR fear that unless government takes action or the economy improves, the Valley's feral-cat population will continue to grow exponentially.
"The problem is probably going to grow so much . . . we may have to write our Legislature," said Linda Baumgardner, director of Altered Tails' TNR program.
But even if Animal Care and Control picked up feral cats, Hollis said, the department doesn't have the resources to do the job.
In the end, Nichols-Young said it's up to residents to solve the problem, and sterilize the cats some neighbors will inevitably feed{/u].
