No kitten around: Palm Beach asks residents, visitors to report kitten sightings
Kitten season is officially underway in Palm Beach, with town officials and local advocates calling on residents and visitors to be mindful of the fluffy little feral felines, and report any sightings.
Kitten season typically begins in the spring each year, bringing with it some cute new faces on the island. The town sent an alert to residents April 9 reminding them to report any sightings to Palm Beach Island Cats at 561-800-4725.
Palm Beach Island Cats was founded about 14 years ago to deal with a growing feral cat population.
The organization’s president, David Leavitt, said it’s important that residents and visitors contact Palm Beach Island Cats as soon as they spot a litter of kittens in the wild.
“The hard thing for us is not knowing, not being alerted to the kittens,” he said. “The kittens are a clear sign that you have a fertile female.”
Once notified, Palm Beach Island Cats will send someone to trap the kittens and mother cat so the kittens can be domesticated and adopted, and the mother cat can be spayed, Leavitt said.
“If people don’t call us, it can turn into a big problem,” he said, noting a situation a few years ago where a group of three cats on one North End street quickly became a colony of 46 cats.
When Palm Beach Island Cats began its work, the number of feral cats was more than 1,000.
The most recent census in 2023 counted 350 cats, Leavitt said.
“We want all cats living safe inside houses,” he said.
If that isn’t a possibility — some cats can’t be domesticated — then the cat is trapped, neutered or spayed, and returned to the island.
Once those adult cats are sterilized, the feral feline population drops through attrition, Leavitt said.
A team of volunteers monitors the dozens of colonies around Palm Beach, he said.
There’s a long history of cats playing an important role with pest control on Palm Beach island, Leavitt said.
As a barrier island, there is a rat population, and the cats help to control it, he said.
“Our program works, and we’ve shown it works by the population dropping,” Leavitt said. “The truth of the matter is, there will always have to be a group like ours in Palm Beach.”
For more information about Palm Beach Island Cats or how to report a litter of kittens, go to pbislandcats.org.
Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at kwebb@pbdailynews.com. Subscribe today to support our journalism.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Kitten season in Palm Beach: How and why to report sightings
