Quote:
Originally Posted by toadog
I could see two dollars but five is pushing it when you have more than one pet.
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$5? That's cheap - very cheap. $15 is the minimum your going to find in Old Orchard Beach, Maine IF you can even find a campground that still allows pets at all.
In the space of 3 years, 4 cats left behind at The Powderhorn Campground on the Cascade Rd multiplied to more than 200 kittens. Down at Wormwoods, 2 lost cats = 37 ferals in a little over a year.
There are currently more than 500 feral cats (not strays) that terrorize campers in the Baileys/Powderhorn/Hidden Pines campground area (viscous wild cats that have never been pets, raised by mother cats who were never pets, ect - trying to catch one of these cats is like trying to catch a bobcat - they will maul you).
In our tiny 7mile long 2mile wide town, there are more than 30 campgrounds, most with 200 lots, one with more than 500 lots, and one with 780 lots. Our little town which 9 months of the year is a dead ghost town with fewer than 7,000 year round residents, gets on average 2 million tourists every June/July/August, 300,000 of which come in RVs. Every fall our town is plagued with dozens upon dozens upon dozens of new lost/stray cats and dogs, and every spring our town is plauged with each of those lost pets giving birth to 4 to 8 pups and kits, and than each summer we are plauged by a return of tourists who complain about their campsites being raided by packs of wild dogs and giant herds of feral cats.
The stray dog population is easier to keep under control than the feral cat population. Fewer campers will leave without a dog, than they will without a cat. Only a handful of strays dogs still roam the 3,000 acres of Ross Forest where all of these campgrounds are, but the feral cat population grows at a rate of nearly 200 kits per spring (and thanks to a traveling circus we also have a cougar on the lose that gets sighted from time to time by campers). At it's worst in 2010 more than 1,000 feral cats were captured in a single month during a massive trap setting campaign at The Powderhorn Campground.
There are 3 shelters and 4 rescues who work round the clock in a desperate attempt to capture and tame these wild cats, rushing against the clock as local police are also hard at work trying to catch and KILL said cats, due to the fact that they are considered HIGHLY DANGEROUS (even though they look like domestic cats or strays, these are truly feral cats raised by feral mother cats and they attack people just as if they were mini-mountain lions).
Since all of the feral cats originate from campers' cats lost during the summer, and 2 lost cats per summer can = 200 feral kittens born in just 4 years, most campgrounds in OOB have put bans on allowing cats (even if they allow dogs, which due to the stray dog problem most don't allow dogs either any more, most no longer allow cats), and those that still do allow cats require proof of spay/neuter, microchipping, and charge at minimum $15 per cat per night. So if you stay a week and have 2 cats you'll be charged an additional $210 to park, on top of your regular hook up fees!
Not only that but us year round residents are now being charged fees to own cats in this town! The problem is so out of control that on feral cat rescue (Cleo Fund) rescues on average 40 cats per month, year after years just from our town alone!
There are actually groups of people who are trying to petition the town to start charging hefty fines to campground owners if they do not stop allowing pets (especially cats) in the campgrounds. Basically campers with cats have effectively given themselves a really bad reputation in Old Orchard Beach, a town that only 10 years ago, had a reputation for being very pet friendly. Some campground owners have even been taken to court by local residents for not punishing their campers for leaving pets behind. Wormwoods has had a lawsuit going on these past 3 years as they actually went and captured 37 ferals, named them and kept them as "mascots", a group of residents are claiming the cats ganged up on their children and sent to the hospital and the Wormwood lawsuit gets messier every day.
It's quite upsetting to the rest of us who are living with pets when so many other pet owners are abusing the system, because it's now becoming harder and harder for me and others who travel with both cats and dogs, to find places to park in this town.
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