 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
 |
|
 |
|
The similarities we can watch between a wild lion or tiger stalking his prey on the Discovery Channel and a fluffy house cat stalking a toy mouse remind us that the domestic cat shares an important kinship with his wild cousins. That inherited feline wildness usually lurks beneath the surface of our pets, but is the stuff of day-today survival for the feral cats in our community. While genetically identical to house cats, feral cats have very different lives because these cats grow up without human contact or revert to a wild state after months or years of self-sufficiency after being lost or abandoned. While so shy as to sometimes remain unseen, feral cats are unfortunately common. The population of feral cats in the United States is suspected to rival that of pet cats (73 million), and to contribute substantially to cat overpopulation. Attempted management of feral cat populations by Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) programs are an increasingly popular alternative to mass euthanasia. The strategy behind TNR is simple but very effective: stop the colony from growing by preventing new litters. Where kittens have been born in a colony, they can often be removed to foster homes, socialized and eventually placed into adoptive homes. For the adults, who are usually too wild to socialize, they are returned to their home colonies and looked after by a volunteer caretaker after being neutered by a vet, and the colony population reduces gradually through natural attrition. Started in March 2005, The Animal Center’s Feral Cat Assistance Program program has always used the TNR strategy to reduce feral cat populations in ourcommunity. |
|
 |
|
What is a feral cat? What cats are eligible? How it Works What if I live outside of Newtown? Want to borrow at trap?
What is TNR? TNR is a full management plan in which stray and feral cats already living outdoors are humanely trapped, evaluated, vaccinated, and sterilized by veterinarians. Where kittens have been born in a colony, they can often be removed to foster homes, socialized and eventually placed into adoptive homes. For the adults, who are usually too wild to socialize, they are returned to their home colonies and looked after by a volunteer caretaker after being neutered by a vet, and the colony population reduces gradually through natural attrition. What are the advantages of TNR? It immediately stabilizes the size of the colony by eliminating new litters. The nuisance behaviors associated with feral cats is dramatically reduced, including fighting among males and the odor of unneutered males spraying to mark their territory. Veterinary care. Cats helped through the Center's Feral Cat Assistance Program get a vet exam, rabies vaccination, distemper vaccination, spay/neuter surgery, are treated for fleas/ticks/earmites, and ear-tipped (required). An ear-tip is a 1/4" straight cut across the cat's left ear and is the universal sign of a neutered cat. After recovering from surgery, feral cats are returned to their familiar habitat under the lifelong care of volunteers. What if I do nothing? Female cats can produce two litters per year, with an average litter of four. If even half of the cats are female, it's easy to see how a feral cat colony can (and will!) grow exponentially. Don't wait for the size of the feral cat colony to grow beyond control. What shelters take feral cats? Based on studies of kill rates for feral cats across the county, we believe feral cats don't belong in shelters. Recent data from Alley Cat Allies found that 70% of all cats who enter animal shelters are killed--feral, stray and pet. That number jumps to virtually 100% for feral cats. Why? Because most people do not want to adopt cats who are not socialized to people and who hide or display aggression when handling is attempted. We believe that's it's more humane to let a cat live out his life in the territory he knows as home after spaying/neutering and vaccinations, ideally under the care of a volunteer. We strongly discourage trying to place feral cats in shelters or relocating them except in extreme circumstances. For more information on this subject, visit Neighborhood Cats About free-roaming cats in Connecticut Shelter intake, redemptions, adoptions, transfers and euthanasia statistics are typically used to measure the stray populations in a community as well as the effectiveness of the programs in place to help them. But in Connecticut, municipal shelters are not legally required to take in cats and the majority do not. In the private sector, shelters and rescue groups are not required by the state to report intake, redemptions, transfers and euthanasia statistics to any central governing agency, nor are they required to track this information on the animals who come into their programs. This makes getting exact figures on cat population difficult, but they can be estimated from demographic studies on feral cat populations. Dr. Julie Levy, DVM, a professor at the University of Florida, Gainesville and one of the leading academicians in the feral cat field, evaluated demographic studies on the topic and concluded that, “[f]or purposes of estimating the size of a community’s feral cat population, it is reasonable to estimate 0.5 cats per household,” which would put Connecticut’s free-roaming cat population at approximately 500,000. Levy, Julie, DVM, “Feral Cat Management,” Chap. 23, p. 378, in Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians and Staff (Blackwell Publishers, 2004). These feral cat population estimates would not likely correlate to data from communities actively engaging in targetted TNR programs. Socializing Feral Cats/Kittens Setting Up Winter Shelters for Feral Cats
Helpful feral cat resources. We recommend the following websites for more information on feral cat, care and management: Feline Spay/Neuter Assistance in Fairfield County
By town
|
|
 |
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
