CatNap Society and Nanaimo's Feral Cats: Colonies, Bylaw, Birds

Pierre was the last one. By early June 2023 CatNap Society volunteers had trapped him on private property, the final un-neutered cat from a group of 86 that the society had been working on for two years and had nicknamed the "orange colony." The society announced it in a news release that the Nanaimo News Bulletin ran on June 4, 2023, alongside a warning that kitten season had been under way for at least a month and often runs into the fall.

That release is a fair summary of how feral cats in Nanaimo are handled in practice: by a volunteer charity, one colony at a time, under a city bylaw that is enforced mostly when someone complains. What follows covers how colonies form, what the CatNap Society does with the cats it traps, the council fight over roaming cats in 2020 and 2021, what the bylaw now says, and why bird groups keep raising the subject.

How a colony of 86 starts with one cat

Candis Reber, CatNap's rescue and trapping director, described the arithmetic to NanaimoNewsNOW in June 2023. "A colony that starts with one abandoned, pregnant cat can suddenly turn into a problem of 25 or more cats," she said. NanaimoNewsNOW's report defined a colony as a group of feral cats sharing one area and one food source, with a caretaker present. Reber estimated that about half a dozen colonies existed in Nanaimo at the time, most of them a handful of animals.

The numbers from that single spring show the workload. Reber said volunteers had trapped 16 feral cats and rescued six kittens from one colony near downtown, and that 155 cats were then under the society's supervision, most of them in foster homes. Her worry was capacity. The breeding season now stretched from early spring to late fall, she said, and foster homes were taking several cats or whole litters at once because there was nowhere else for them to go.

She was blunt about what happens when nobody intervenes. Many feral kittens grow up to breed and fight, and many others die of illness, parasites, weather or injury. "There is a lot of preventable suffering," she said.

A feral cat, in the City of Nanaimo's own definition, is one "unsocialized to humans" with "a temperament of extreme fear and resistance to contact with humans." That distinction matters for what comes next, because a frightened stray can sometimes be rehomed and a true feral usually cannot.

What CatNap Society does with the cats it traps

The CatNap Society has worked in Nanaimo since 1998, according to its CanadaHelps profile, which also describes it as entirely volunteer-run with no paid staff and says about 99.5 per cent of money raised goes to spaying and neutering, food, litter, foster care and veterinary bills. The registered name spells out the acronym: Cats Needing Aid and Protection.

Its stated mandate has three steps. Cats and kittens are trapped and given medical care, including vaccines, parasite treatment and sterilization. Those that can be socialized go to foster homes and then to adopters. Feral cats that are unlikely to settle indoors go back to their original colony after surgery, where a caregiver provides shelter and daily food and water. The June 2023 release added that the society works in partnership with Nanaimo Animal Control and the SPCA.

How many cats that adds up to depends on which page you read. The society's website says 500 to 600 a year. Its CanadaHelps profile says over 500. In October 2021, adoption director Karin Jacobson told the News Bulletin that 600 cats had been rescued by that point in the year, from Ladysmith to the Lantzville area. The figures are not contradictory so much as loose, and none comes with a method.

The society's own advice page is direct about where the problem starts. Its list of spay and neuter myths includes the belief that an indoor cat does not need to be fixed, and answers it plainly: "The cat over-population problem is caused by animals which are not fixed and get out, even if it's just once."

The roaming-cat fight at city hall

Nanaimo rewrote its animal rules in 2020 and 2021, and cats were the sticking point. A draft bylaw reached a council committee on November 9, 2020. A week later, after what NanaimoNewsNOW described as a substantial push from the community, councillors voted unanimously to delay third reading and give the public three weeks to comment. The provision drawing most of the response was the ban on cats roaming at large.

Leon Davis, executive director of the Nanaimo SPCA, supported tighter rules. He told council that neighbourhood cats fighting with other pets were the shelter's most common call, and described a family with 12 cats on their property whose gift of one kitten left a child with ringworm. In February 2021 he added that staff were preparing to deal with a reported 30 to 40 cats with multiple litters in a basement suite.

Councillors tried to reassure owners. "The City doesn't want to patrol and chase down cats," Coun. Ian Thorpe said when council gave three readings on February 1, 2021, describing the bylaw as complaint-driven. Alison Cuffley of the BC SPCA put the alternative more sharply, warning that outdated rules could make the city "a safe haven for animal hoarders, illegitimate breeders and Tiger Kings."

Council adopted the Animal Responsibility Bylaw on September 21, 2021, after approval from the provincial minister then responsible for forests and natural resource operations.

What Bylaw 7316 says about feral cats

The feral-cat rules sit in a short run of sections. Section 62 says no one may keep a cat apparently older than six months unless it has been sterilized, with an exception for licensed breeders, and section 60 requires identification for any cat over 12 weeks. Section 63 bans anyone from intentionally feeding or leaving food out for a feral cat.

Section 64 then carves out the trap-neuter-release model. A person may feed feral cats only if they are registered with a City-approved trap-neuter-release organization and keep a written plan for each cat's care, feeding, sterilization, tattooing or ear tipping, and vaccination. The plan has to be registered with that organization, the city's poundkeeper and the local SPCA. Feeding stations must be on private property, may hold food for no more than 45 minutes once a day, and need outdoor shelter on the same property.

If you have been putting a bowl out for a cat that will not let you near it, that clause is the one that applies to you, and the practical route to compliance runs through a rescue group rather than city hall.

The Times Colonist summarized the rest when the bylaw passed: a limit of five cats per owner with some exceptions, and impound fees of $25 plus $10 a day for a sterilized cat without identification against $100 plus $10 a day for an unsterilized one, with $75 refunded if the owner has the cat fixed within a month. A "Promise to Return" policy waived impound and seizure fees for sterilized, identified cats until January 1, 2023. That waiver has now lapsed.

Enforcement still rests on complaints. The city says bylaw officers can respond to "a nuisance animal, stray or abandoned cat, or feral population that needs addressing." Inside city limits that means Nanaimo Animal Control, which runs the pound and adoption centre at 1260 Nanaimo Lakes Road. Elsewhere in the regional district, the city points callers to Coastal Animal Services.

Why bird groups care

The case against free-roaming cats is mostly made on behalf of birds. In a 2013 paper in Avian Conservation and Ecology, Peter Blancher estimated that cats kill between 100 and 350 million birds a year in Canada, "with the majority likely to be killed by feral cats," and called predation by cats probably the largest human-related source of bird mortality in the country. He was candid about the uncertainty: the estimate rests on roughly 8.5 million pet cats, a rough approximation of 1.4 to 4.2 million feral cats, and predation rates measured elsewhere. Better counts of feral cats in Canada, he wrote, would improve it most.

The North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre in Errington made the local case in a News Bulletin column in August 2026. It said cat attacks are one of the main reasons small birds are admitted for treatment, that even a scratch can cause fatal septicemia because of bacteria in a cat's mouth, and that hunting cats can catch avian flu from sick birds. The column also repeated the figure that cats have been largely responsible for the extinction of 33 bird species. Blancher's paper gives the context the column leaves out: those 33 extinctions were mostly on oceanic islands.

Anyone who watches waterbirds at Buttertubs Marsh will see why the argument lands locally. Cats are not the only introduced mammal the island argues about either; the black squirrels around Nanaimo are another, with their own provincial rules.

Where things stand in autumn 2026

The CatNap Society's calendar for October 2026 reads like that of any small charity that runs on weekends: adoption events at Bosley's stores on October 17 and 18, a week of afternoon adoption sessions at PetSmart from October 19, and a bottle drive on October 25 at the Regional Recycling Centre on Hayes Road. An online auction is set for November 13 to 22 and a craft fair for November 28 and 29.

The rules have been in place for five years. The same bylaw governs dogs, including where they may run free in the off-leash parks of Nanaimo.

What nobody has published is a count. Reber's 2023 estimate of about half a dozen colonies is the only number for Nanaimo in the coverage, and it came from the people doing the trapping. The city's bylaw pages give no figure for how many feral-cat complaints its officers have handled.

Questions

What does CatNap stand for?

The registered name is CatNap (Cats Needing Aid and Protection) Society. It is a B.C. society and a Canada Revenue Agency registered charity based in Nanaimo.

How many cats does CatNap Society help each year?

Its own figures vary by page. The society's website says 500 to 600 cats a year, its CanadaHelps profile says over 500, and an adoption director told the News Bulletin in October 2021 that 600 had been rescued that year by then.

Is it legal to feed a feral cat in Nanaimo?

Only under conditions. Bylaw 7316 bans feeding feral cats unless the person is registered with a City-approved trap-neuter-release organization, has a written care plan filed with that group, the poundkeeper and the SPCA, and feeds on private property for no more than 45 minutes once a day, with shelter provided.

Do cats in Nanaimo have to stay indoors?

No. The bylaw bans cats from running at large in public places or on someone else's property without permission, but the city enforces it on complaint and does not require leashes. Owners can let cats out, and the city investigates if a neighbour complains.

Do cats in Nanaimo need to be spayed or neutered?

Yes, with an exception for licensed breeders. The bylaw requires sterilization for cats apparently older than six months and identification, such as a tag, tattoo or microchip, for cats over 12 weeks.

What is ear tipping?

Nanaimo's bylaw defines it as removing the quarter-inch tip of a feral cat's ear, usually the left, while the cat is under anesthesia with a veterinarian supervising. The bylaw lists it, alongside tattooing, as a way to mark feral cats covered by a registered care plan.

Who do you call about a stray cat in Nanaimo?

Within city limits, Nanaimo Animal Control runs the pound and adoption centre at 1260 Nanaimo Lakes Road. In the rest of the Regional District of Nanaimo, the city directs callers to Coastal Animal Services, and suspected cruelty goes to the BC SPCA hotline.

How many birds do cats kill in Canada?

A 2013 study by Peter Blancher in Avian Conservation and Ecology estimated 100 to 350 million birds a year, with the majority likely killed by feral cats. The author noted that the estimate rests on rough feral cat numbers and predation rates measured outside Canada.

How many cats can one household keep in Nanaimo?

The Times Colonist reported a limit of five cats per owner when the bylaw was adopted, with some exceptions. The same rules cap dogs at four.

How can someone help CatNap Society?

The society takes volunteers, foster homes and donations, and runs fundraisers such as bottle drives, an online auction and a craft fair. Its adoptable cats are listed on its Facebook page and on Petfinder, and shown at pet store adoption events.