A decision to order a cat feeding station off a council reserve in Paihia has been described as heartless by the Paihia pensioner who looks after the strays.
Betty Chapman, 86, and her team of 12 have been feeding Paihia's stray cats for the past nine years. Any cats dumped in the area are trapped, desexed and re-released. The colony is said to currently number 10 cats.
However, conservation groups have raised concerns about the cats' threat to wildlife - Paihia is ringed by native bush, and the beach is frequented by endangered shorebirds - and the council believes allowing the feeding station could be a breach of the Reserves Act.
Following months of debate the Bay of Islands-Whangaroa Community Board resolved on Wednesday that the feeding station be removed and the volunteers instructed not to feed cats on the Williams House reserve.
Mrs Chapman said she was waiting to see the board's resolution in writing before deciding what to do next. However, she said the decision was ``very heartless'' for the cats and her volunteers.
She also questioned whether board members could have read all the new information put to them by the SPCA before putting it to the vote.
''If they had read every bit of information that was given, they would have seen other ways out. That is what hurts.''
Meanwhile, SPCA Auckland boss Bob Kerridge said the decision showed a lack of humanity and conscience. The board appeared to have made no plans for the cats currently being fed by Mrs Chapman's volunteers and could be committing an offence under the Animal Welfare Act by instructing the ''person in charge'' to abandon their duties.
More importantly, shutting down the feeding station could trigger further problems if the cats had to seek food elsewhere.
Far North Forest and Bird chairman Dean Baigent-Mercer said stray cats were a national issue, not just something of concern to Paihia.
''We respect the work the SPCA does on desexing and rehoming, but supporting stray cat colonies is wrong. It drags down the good work the SPCA does. This isn't the country for stray cat colonies,'' he said.
Bay Bush Action trustee Craig Salmon said if the Bay of Islands SPCA had re-homed 1000 cats, as stated in Wednesday's meeting, he wondered why homes couldn't be found for another 10.
''If a dog can't be rehomed they don't let into back into the wild,'' he said.
The conservation group has offered to set up rat traps around Paihia's Village Green. It was irresponsible to leave rat-catching to stray cats which also caught wildlife, Mr Salmon said.