So much so that the Bermuda Feline Assistance Bureau (BFAB) may try to make their increasing numbers an election issue for Health and Social Services Minister the Hon. Quinton Edness and Independent MP Mr. Stuart Hayward.

The cat problem, said BFAB spokeswoman Mrs. Belle Hunt, was a health and an environmental one.

"There are about 10,000 strays on the Island that we know about'', she said.

BFAB is a volunteer task force aimed at helping those who have a problem with stray cats. They feed and try to catch cats in order to neuter and medically treat them. They then try to find adoptive homes.

But BFAB was not a "dumping ground for unwanted cats'', stressed Mrs. Hunt.

The organisation is working in about 100 feral cat communes, taking care of more than 500 cats.

Their work has been hampered by a so-far minor outbreak of feline enteritis (inflammation of the intestines).

Dr. Maureen Ware of the Hannover Veterinary Hospital and Kennels said she and her partners were seeing a marked increase in cases passing through their hands. Twenty seven kittens and four adult cats have died in the past two weeks, compared to just a handful in the previous four or five years.

Government veterinarian Dr. Neil Burnie noted there had been a rise in the number of cases of enteritis all over the Island.

The disease can cause death within 24 hours, and the mortality rate is 60 to 90 percent, said Dr. Burnie.

Symptoms are a sudden temperature, loss of appetite, and occasional vomiting.

The cat may sit by water but refuse to touch it, and cry faintly when picked up. Faeces are blood-stained.

Mrs. Hunt stressed that yearly-inoculated cats were not at risk. Cats could pull through if treated, but stressed, young, old, and pregnant were at risk.

BFAB wants exposure without panicking people, said Mrs. Hunt. "We don't want people'' throwing hot water or boiling grease at strays or unfamiliar domestic cats.

"We need a cat law. We need Quinton Edness or Stuart Hayward to attend some of our meetings or contact us and find a way to help.'' Dr. Ware pushed the message: neuter both male and female cats, because both were responsible for the population explosion.

BFAB is calling for legislation to restrict cats to two per home and to be registered to an assessment number. Even a charge of one dollar per cat each year would be a start, suggested Mrs. Hunt. It would be a new source of Government revenue, and the money could be sent to the SPCA.

No kittens should be legally available for adoption except through pet shops, she insisted.

Under present laws the SPCA can be little more than a "holding facility'', except when cruelty or neglect can be proved, she said.

She said she knew "for a fact'' that people would drop off three or four-year-old cats at the SPCA, and "within a month they will go in and take a kitten.'' This "recycling'' had to stop, she demanded.

"If Government set up a phone line, they would become more aware of the problem.'' People dumped cats in Government parks and on beaches, she said. The animals urinated and defecated in these places, causing a health risk which became worse in the summer, with children playing outside and temperatures reaching the 80s and 90s.

To help combat the problem, BFAB is asking for more public donations and a larger Government grant, and perhaps even a property where cats could be relocated or kept until adopted.

Mrs. Hunt said they were always grateful to wholesalers and supermarkets who would sell or give them out-of-date or dented food cans.

CAT COMMUNE -- Mrs. Belle Hunt and granddaughter Kimberly Botelho feed stray cats in a Devonshire commune, one of many run by BFAB.