We had a regular damncat rodeo roundup during the recent spring break week in New Orleans. Of course, most people have better ideas about how to spend a spring break, but on Laurel Street we were about to face an exponential population increase if we didn’t head off a few litters.

Rosemary had known it was coming. Several feral females had become fertile simultaneously the month before. Reticent damncats who normally flee to nearby crawl spaces when approached too closely by the human hand that feeds them turned into exhibitionists, she said, copulating during daylight on the sidewalk and in the yard in full view of neighbors and passersby while providing their own musical accompaniment.

Toms from neighboring streets imported themselves temporarily to our street, such was the demand for their services. The combination of caterwauling so endeared us among our neighbors that Rosemary started staying inside during daylight hours to lessen the chances of face-to-face encounters.

And when it was over, it still wasn’t over, so we put our best trap forward early during the spring break week and managed to catch a couple of the damncats and get them to a sympathetic neighborhood vet who helps us with this project.

Then we caught another, but after that the damncats got trap-wary with at least two bulging females still at large. Facing a deadline and feeling desperate, I bought a fisherman’s landing net with an extension handle.

No fish ever landed put up more fight than the yellow tabby I slammed that net over as she ate unsuspectingly from a communal bowl. With care and gloved hands we unthreaded her from the net into a carrier. She was our fourth, all female, three pregnant. The fifth was the main Tom who had missed the memo warning about traps. He is still trying to figure out his new station in life.

And that’s the way it is on Laurel Street in Uptown New Orleans, where the neighbors now greatly outnumber the hoods even if the damncat population has only been slightly curtailed.