Running Wild: The Cats of Cornwall Doc Compassionately Highlights Plight of Cat Homelessness

By Kim Hughes

Rating: B+

Anyone involved in cat rescue anyplace on Earth will wearily nod their head in recognition at the sorry state of affairs and troubling statistics chronicled in Running Wild: The Cats of Cornwall.

Cat rescuer Mellissa Alepins feeds a tiny kitten.

Though this engaging documentary — written and directed by Aaron Hancox and debuting November 24, 9 pm on TVO — trains its lens on the small eastern Ontario city of Cornwall, homeless cats exist everywhere. Which is why those in rescue increasingly refer to these sweet creatures as “community cats” instead of feral cats, the latter a term which makes them seem easier to dismiss.

Cat homelessness is a community problem; solving the problem requires buy-in from everyone. But getting buy-in from neighbours, lawmakers, and local business owners on an unsexy, economically neutral issue like cat homelessness is a titanic feat, as this film shows.

Yet there is also titanic incentive to find and pursue solutions.

As The Cats of Cornwall reveals, some 250 million — yes, you read that right, 250 million — birds are estimated to be killed each year in Canada by domestic cats, a hideous stat made possible not just because of community cats but also because of owned cats allowed to roam outside, something your local cat rescue volunteer (like me) would tell you to never, ever do.

A single unspayed female can produce 12 kittens a year. In seven years of unchecked mating, according to this film, the population rises to 370,000. Dizzying numbers like these put Cornwall on the cat homelessness map when, in 2017, 764 stray cats were taken in by the local OSPCA.

Cat hoarding situations often make headlines. But the frequently heartbreaking work done by unpaid trappers, feeders, and other volunteers in back alleys and parking garages happens every day of the year, often invisibly, and often amid hostile property owners who regard cats as a disposable nuisance rather than a by-product of human neglect requiring compassionate intervention and ongoing vigilance.

The film introduces many compelling voices. Ecologists Dr. Elizabeth Gow (University of Guelph) and Dr. Bridget Stutchbury (York University) highlight the above-mentioned impact outdoor cats have on bird and small animal populations, making them essentially an invasive species.

PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN

Also compelling are the sad, real-life stories — also maddeningly familiar to anyone in animal rescue work — told by rescuer/activists Mellissa Alepins and Mary Jane Proulx, who detail how crucial executing trap-neuter-return programs are to solving the problem, and how often well-meaning (and sometimes not-so-well-meaning) but uninformed people stand in their way.

Things get sticky when questions like, “Who pays for the surgeries” and “Why are you releasing them back outside” arise. There is also the question of animal stewardship and the unfathomable yet very real fact that many otherwise sensible people regard cats differently than dogs, either as more able to fend for themselves in the urban wild (untrue, but the rationale for many cases of cat abandonment when they become inconvenient) or simple wrongheadedness.

Think about it. How many times have you been walking down the street, seen a cat roaming and thought, “Oh there’s a cat. Onward.” If you saw a dog walking down the street unattended, would your reaction be the same? Probably not, if you’re honest.

Cats must be universally seen as being as important as dogs if the problem of cat abandonment and homelessness is to be truly solved. Owned cats meanwhile, must be spayed or neutered and kept indoors.

But the tragic stories continue to mount. As Alepins, who runs Cornwall’s Tiny But Mighty Cat Rescue says of her work, “It’s half rewarding and half devastating.”

Similarly, filmmaker Hancox is quoted in a release, “We learned so much over the course of making this film—from the staggering impact stray and feral cats have on biodiversity and their classification as an invasive species, to how deeply divided the public was on the issue, and the dedication of rescuers concerned for the physical safety of these cats.

“The bottom line is that Cornwall’s cat crisis is a human-created problem that requires a human fix.”

Indeed. And while Running Wild: The Cats of Cornwall doesn’t bring any new solutions to bear on this vexing and utterly preventable problem, it successfully highlights the struggles of those working the frontlines of rescue… and of the cats themselves, who did not ask to be homeless, but who suffer greatly and needlessly for the society’s ongoing negligence.

Running Wild: The Cats of Cornwall. Written and directed by Aaron Hancox. Airs on TVO on November 24 at 9 pm and will be available for streaming on TVO.org 24/7. It will also air November 28 at 9 pm and November 29 at 10:30 pm.