Volunteers re-home Buckhorn Bath cat colony

Mar. 22—Decades after the bustle and voices of major league ball players, cross-country tourists and locals getting a soak faded away at Buckhorn Baths spa and motel bathhouse in Mesa in 1999, feline guests continued to stalk the grounds of the historic landmark.

Feral cats, are outdoor cats with no owner, are also called "community cats," a less pejorative term that reflects the reality that the community looks after them.

For years, Cathy Creighton Talbot has been caregiver to the colony of 16 cats at the shuttered motel, spa and museum as a volunteer with Purrfect Endings Feline Rescue.

The local nonprofit supports trap-neuter-return efforts, raises money for medical care and helps socialized community cats find homes.

Talbot learned last month from the Buckhorn Baths' caretaker that the current owner was planning to erect a fence around the site that would limit volunteers' access to the grounds to feed and monitor the colony and trap unneutered cats.

So Purrfect Endings rehomed the colony.

Purrfect Endings volunteers began an emergency trapping operation.

"We started trapping morning and night, put traps inside and out," Talbot said. "Within two to three weeks we managed to get out 15 cats."

But one white cat the volunteers dubbed "Ghost" continued to elude its pursuers, who new the cat was there because it showed up in ghostly images on cameras in the buildings

Ghost was skittish, but Talbot said she wasn't going to stop until she got him. Finally, in early March, she found Ghost peering out of a trap.

All the cats "were pretty healthy at Buckhorn," Talbot said, adding they all were placed in a Tucson cat program.

The program matches community cats with farms that would like to have outdoor cats on their property to help control pests, like rodents.

Adopters provide the working cats with food, water and access to shelter, and in return they get a fixed cat skilled at hunting and being outdoors on its own.

While the threat of a fence around Buckhorn Baths spurred the emergency trapping, the owners have yet to put one up.

Buckhorn's land use attorney Ralph Pew and architect Tim Boyle did not respond to an email requesting information about work planned at the site.

The long-term fate of the historic landmark is still in limbo. Mesa city planners and the owners wrangled in October over designs for multifamily housing on the vacant land outside of the historic portion of Buckhorn, as well as the timing of preservation work on the Buckhorn Baths.

The owner has said he intends to preserve the landmark, but local historic preservation advocates are worried that they increasing delay could lead to long-term damage to the historic structures.

Talbot has acquired a unique perspective on the Buckhorn Baths buildings while caring for the cats.

"I'm hoping that they restore the bathhouse and museum," Talbot said. "When we were going through the structure of the bathhouse, it's gorgeous. It's well built and it's iconic in Mesa. It needs to stay."

Perfect Endings owner Patti O'Dwyer, who helped with the emergency trapping at Buckhorn, said the historic bathhouse and museum "definitely needs some work, but it's in better shape than I thought it would be. It's pretty well sealed up."

She said a lot of it looks like it hasn't been touched since the day the bathhouse closed, with everyday items associated with the spa still in place. It was almost "a little creepy," she said.

Though the Buckhorn was a safe and secure place for its feline guests, Talbot said, "I don't want more cats there. I want that to be a colony that is done."

She has set up a camera to monitor whether new feral cats arrive.

While feeding and monitoring the colony for non-neutered arrivals over the years, Talbot estimates she's trapped over 50 cats at the historic spa building.

Trap-neuter-return is widely considered the most humane approach to managing community cats. The technique controls the population and reduces nuisance behavior like yowling and fighting.

After feral cats are caught and neutered, the tip of the cat's left ear is surgically removed as a universal sign that the cat has been fixed and doesn't need to be retrapped.

In TNR, the cat is then returned to where it was caught. The cat is already familiar with the area, and its presence "prevents a vacuum effect which causes other feral cats to take over the voided territory," according to the City of Mesa's community cat information page.

Talbot said she started doing TNR five years ago, after she saw a woman feeding a cat outdoors and asked about it.

"I guess I drank the Kool Aid, and all of the sudden I'm trapping cats," she said.

She said if concerned citizens don't get community cats fixed, "we're going to have hundreds of more cats that are going to be breeding outside, and there's nothing worse than picking up a sick or dead kitten born outside."

"I have seen colonies of cats that started out with four or five cats, and the next season, it was 20 cats," she said.

Talbot said that nonprofits are important for TNR because many Good Samaritans need guidance through the process or financial help. Many community cat managers are seniors living on fixed incomes.

Nonprofits like the Animal Defense League of Arizona can connect trappers with reduced price neutering appointments at local veterinarians, typically $35 or $45, and nonprofits can help cover those costs.

Dwyer urged cat owners to "No. 1," get their cats fixed to prevent overpopulation. She also urged anyone struggling with caring for a cat to reach out to the rescue community for help.

For more information on community cats, visit Purrfect Endings's website at purrfectendings.com or the City of Mesa's feral cat info page at mesaaz.gov/residents/animal-control/feral-cats.