The Gloucester-Mathews Humane Society’s Backyard Buddy program provides feral or community cats with the opportunity to be adopted by businesses, farms, individual homes and more.
“They provide a very valuable service,” said Chevy Carper, GMHS operations manager.
One of the highlights of adopting a backyard buddy is to have an ecologically-friendly means of keeping unwanted pests at bay, like mice.
“If you don’t have rodents, you don’t have snakes,” said Carper.
Warehouses, factories, businesses, farms and homes with yards can all benefit from the backyard buddies program. Even neighborhoods are good candidates for the program to maintain mole and mice control.
Deborah Butler, co-founder of the Friends of Gloucester Community Cats, knew once of a roaming cat in a neighborhood. Once the cat was gone, “all of the field mice moved in,” said Butler.
“It is not uncommon for them to live full and healthy lives,” said Carper about backyard buddies.
“They can live a long time,” said Butler, “t...