By Erin Mangold, Student Reporter

Students may have seen wild cats roaming the campus, not Willie the Wildcat, but actual stray cats.

Some have spotted these cats running across the university’s lawns or searching the trash bins for food; others have endured their biting or scratching when getting to close to the toms and felines.

Physical Resources recently began placing traps around campus in attempt to control the cat epidemic. An announcement on the myACU homepage warned students, faculty and staff to not let the trapped cats loose because they were a risk to everyone on campus.

Stray cats on campus have been a problem for a long time, said Scot Colley, associate director of Physical Resources.

“We have been dealing with them for seven years, that I know,” Colley said. “We just occasionally put out traps and City of Abilene Animal Control picks them up.”

David Williams, an air conditioner technician by day and kitchen supervisor by night, has been a member of the ACU staff for six years. He said the university has never fully resolved the stray cat problem.

“One time, they started trapping them, and the population went down,” Williams said. “But after a while, they came back and they’re still everywhere.”

He and several ACU employees from the kitchen staff decided to take matters into their own hands.

“We trapped one of the tom cats, pitched in money, had it neutered and released it, ” Williams said. “Hopefully that will help the problem a little.”