BALTIMORE — Local animal groups say Baltimore's street cat colonies are becoming increasingly difficult for volunteers to manage, and now they're launching a coordinated effort to try to get the population under control.
Project Kitty Angel launches Sept. 25. Over three days, volunteer trapping teams will target two Baltimore City neighborhoods — Armistead Gardens and Reservoir Hill — trapping cats to be spayed or neutered, vaccinated and microchipped.
The goal isn't to remove the cats from their communities, but to stabilize the colonies by preventing them from continuing to reproduce.
Show Your Soft Side, the Baltimore-based nonprofit behind the effort, says there are an estimated 82,000 cats living on Baltimore's streets, while much of the work to care for them falls on volunteers.
Dawn Cannella, president of Peninsula Colony Cats, has been caring for street cats for 15 years. She said the work, and the cats she's encountering, have changed significantly.
"When I started this years ago, they were all feral, and it was a lot easier. You trap them, get them fixed, you're returning them, and then you feed them," Cannella said.
But in recent years, Cannella and others in the rescue community say they're encountering more cats that appear accustomed to people.
"Now there are a lot of cats out there that are friendly, and we're seeing that they are put out, they're abandoned, they're left behind," Cannella said.
One example is Mali, a friendly cat Cannella is now caring for. She said a neighbor told her Mali's owners moved out of their apartment, leaving the cat outside with a bag of food and a bowl of water.
Show Your Soft Side says it is seeing a similar shift through its Street Kitty Medical Fund, which pays for emergency medical care for sick and injured community cats.
When the fund launched in 2019, it received 63 requests for help. In 2025, that number jumped to 666.
From June 2025 through June 2026, the fund covered 636 veterinary visits and surgeries for 530 cats. Show Your Soft Side says at least 54% of the cats coming through the program are considered "friendly" and have since been adopted. Only 42% had already been spayed or neutered.
Caroline Griffin, co-founder of Show Your Soft Side, said the growing need has become difficult to ignore.
"We have a street cat medical fund that takes care of sick and injured street cats, and we've been seeing more and more of these cats come in that are friendly," Griffin said. "We realize we just cannot turn a blind eye to the suffering of these animals that very likely had a home."
Show Your Soft Side says it does not have definitive data showing that cat abandonment has increased. But the group says the increase in requests for medical care, along with reports from residents, businesses and volunteer trappers, points to a growing problem.
Project Kitty Angel grew out of what the group was seeing through the medical fund.
"There are these two colonies, Armistead Gardens and also Reservoir Hill, and these are large, large colonies of unsterilized animals and they just keep reproducing," Griffin said.
Organizers estimate there are upwards of 70 cats between the two colonies. With help from two veterinary clinics, they're aiming high: sterilize every cat they can find.
"We're hoping to sterilize 100% of the cats in these colonies," Griffin said.
Nationally known animal advocates and Show Your Soft Side ambassadors Sterling "Trap King" Davis and Nathan the Cat Lady will also take part in the initiative. Weruva will provide food donations to caretakers who feed large colonies.
The project is funded through a gift from CFG Bank Arena, with additional support from Weruva, Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel, Bagel Works of Hunt Valley, Timonium Animal Hospital, Harley-Davidson of Baltimore, Evergreen Veterinary Care and Tito's Handmade Vodka.
For volunteers like Cannella, however, the three-day effort is only one part of work that continues every day.
"Always overwhelmed, always stressed," Cannella said. "There are times where I say I'm never going to do this again because it hurts too bad emotionally or physically, and then I look at the cats and who's going to take care of them. If I quit, then that's one less person, so I just keep going."