This is the fourth installment in a limited series on Maine’s “quaint holdover,” the annual town meeting. This week we turn on the Wayback Machine and visit a Maine island village about the time we were all worried about Y2K.

Monhegan Island has long been home to both fishermen and a large seabird population. But in the early 2000s, a major controversy erupted—over cats.

The island’s has always been tolerant of a free-roaming feline population. But as of late, it had been steadily growing, and residents started noticing a decline in seabirds, particularly puffins, and felt something needed to be done to curtail the cats. To be fair, there was considerable anecdotal evidence of a “cat-tastrophy.” While some blamed the cats for attacking the birds, others defended them as an integral part of island life.

At the annual town meeting, tensions flared. The bird lovers wanted a strict cat control ordinance. The cat lovers argued that the island had always had cats, and it was on the birds to learn to deal with the cats. And one old-timer even claimed it didn’t really matter either way because puffins were “too dumb to survive” anyway.

After hours of heated debate, a compromise was finally reached. No outright ban on cats was passed, but some stricter pet control measures were adopted. And the island formed the Monhegan Cat Patrol, a small volunteer group tasked with keeping track of island cats and ensuring they weren’t wreaking havoc on the birds.

The story became a national curiosity, covered in newspapers and wildlife publications. To this day, Monhegan still balances its love for both cats and puffins, proving that even the smallest towns can tackle big issues in true democratic fashion.