Working Cats
On A Cannabis Farm By Alonzo Orozco
Editor’s note: Because unwanted cats and kittens often are More than 20 years ago, Catalyst for Cats helped Newton dumped, the names and locations of farmers and ranchers control the feral cat population on his cannabis ranch are intentionally vague in this article. off Route 166. It was spring and the females already had dropped their litters. Fairbrother recalls having to make By doing what they do best, industrious felines are helping multiple trips to get the job done. “We got over two dozen Central Coast cannabis growers. kittens out of there for adoption and all the others TNR’d,” recalls Fairbrother. Before adoption, all kittens are spayed “Cats love to hunt, they hunt for small things that move … or neutered. lizards, rabbits, opossums, squirrels, also birds …,” explains Randi Fairbrother, founder of Catalyst for Cats, a Santa As the years went by, Newton developed an admiration for Barbara County-based organization whose primary goal is his four-legged helpers. “For me, it was watching them lounge preventing the suffering of cats, and its main strategy is the around in trees, that’s what I liked,” he says. “Between him and reduction and control of feral cat populations within Santa another rancher, his cannabis farm had around 50 cats at Barbara County through its Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) and one time.” feeding programs. Though the felines were ranch regulars, the cannabis Volunteers humanely trap cats in feral colonies, neuter or cultivator didn’t consider them pets, as some roamed far spay them, return the cats to their “homes” or relocate them away from the trailer, so it became difficult to give them to farms, barns, and ranches, where the felines earn their names. “Feral cats are scared of people, you can have room and board by keeping vermin and other pests at bay. kittens and can cuddle with them, but feral cats are wild,” Eventually, the colony dies out because unwanted kittens he explains. “But, they also we’re good at keeping rodents are not being born. away from the storage areas.”
16 Cannabis by the Sea
Summer 2020
