Fellow street cat lovers beware: Research out today shows many felines we encounter outdoors are likely to be carrying all sorts of things that can sicken humans. Veterinary researchers studied free-roaming cats in New York City. More than half were infected with parasites that could potentially be transmitted to humans, they found. Young male cats especially tended to be magnets for a certain group of roundworms. The findings underscore “the public health risks associated with unmanaged feline populations in densely populated urban centers,” the researchers wrote in their paper, published Wednesday in PLOS-One. Super-shedders Cats are well known to be carriers of several zoonotic pathogens, meaning disease-causing bacteria, viruses, or parasites that can spread from animals to humans. According to the authors, however, there’s been little research examining how widely prevalent these parasites might be among free-roaming cats that call the Big Apple home. Free-roaming cats include strays, feral cats, and pet cats that regularly spend time outdoors.
The researchers examined blood and fecal samples collected from cats briefly captured through trap-and-neutering, or TNR, programs in NYC. These programs, in an effort to curb overpopulation, will humanely trap, neuter, and often vaccinate street cats against diseases like rabies before returning them back to the wild. All told, they studied 87 cats trapped between May and July 2023.
