"Sheltering an Animal’s Perspective"

by Gregory M. Simpson

If you love cats - all cats - you need to know about these letters – TNR.  They stand for Trap-Neuter-Return and represent the most humane steps to assisting feral cats.  But what is a feral cat?
The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) defines feral cats as the offspring of lost or abandoned pet cats or other feral cats that are not spayed or neutered.  They are not accustomed to contact with people and are typically too fearful and wild to be handled.  They also do not easily adapt or may never adapt to living as companion animals.  A stray cat, by contrast, is a lost or abandoned pet cat.  Strays are used to people, are tame, and may be reunited with their families or adopted into new homes.
Thousands of feral cats live in Connecticut; perhaps as many as 300,000 – 400,000 according to the Animal Welfare Federation of Connecticut (AWFCT).  At a Connecticut conference on feral cats sponsored by HSUS and the Petco Foundation, Bryan Kortis, executive director of Neighborhood Cats in New York City (www.neighborhoodcats.org),  offered wryly, "In Connecticut, you’re like a lot of people; running around with teacups trying to empty the ocean."  With so many feral cats, clearly a widespread application of a proven method is needed.
TNR basics consist of humane trapping (the "T"), spaying or neutering with a vaccination minimally for rabies and typically ear tipping for identification (the "N"), and the return to the colony from which the cat came (the "R").  Daily monitoring of food, shelter, illness, and trapping of new arrivals is the work of a long-term caretaker.  This monitoring constitutes the additional unsaid letter "M" after TNR.
Besides caring about cats’ welfare, there are public health reasons to promote TNR.  Remember that all of these issues were present with feral cats prior to TNR.  The approach does not cause these public health concerns. They would still be there without it.
Since feral cats interact with raccoons which are the most common vector wildlife for rabies (along with bats and skunks), it is important that feral cats be vaccinated against this disease. 
Kortis notes that since 1975 there has not been a single case of a person contracting rabies from a cat, however.
Cats that are spayed/neutered, vaccinated, and monitored do not present the same nuisance issues such as the caterwauling due to fighting and mating, the strong smell from unaltered males spraying to mark their territory, and the deadly, emaciated or sickly animals seen in non-maintained colonies. 
With TNR, experience shows that a colony with a 70% spay/neuter rate will exhibit stabilized numbers.  Once a 90% spay/neuter rate is reached, colony attrition is fairly assured. 
Connecticut was the first state to award grants to feral cat groups for the purpose of spay/neuter, through its Department of Agriculture.  Connecticut is also the state with the lowest euthanasia rate, however largely because most animal control officers and many private shelters do not take in feral cats.  In the rare instances where they are picked up, they are typically euthanized.  So what are the options when finding feral cats in one’s community?
There are four approaches for addressing feral cats.  The most prevalent is to do nothing.  Another is to trap and remove the cats, but that usually amounts to a death sentence, since finding alternative living arrangements such as barns are rare.  Even with relocation that necessitates a three week confinement to assimilate cats to a new territory, only slightly better than two-thirds of cats typically will stay on site.  Thus, trap and remove usually means trap, remove and euthanize.  Even then, unless one is willing to pay a significant amount of money for trapping, removal and euthanasia, there is no one who will do it. In addition, it’s difficult and time consuming to catch all the cats in an area.  What usually happens is some cats are left behind and they, along with any new cats which show up, quickly repopulate the area. 
The third approach is a legislated feeding ban, based on the thinking that removing the food source will lead to feral cat attrition.  This is universally unsuccessful, however, since it is impossible to prevent caring people from feeding hungry cats.  Cats also will not leave an area that has provided food and shelter, because cats are territorial.  Regarding feeding bans, Kortis asks legislators, "Can you pass an amendment that it won’t rain on Sundays?  Because that will be as effective." 
The fourth, and only humane approach, is TNR.
TNR needs to be a community-wide approach and not limited to one site in order to be most effective.  Otherwise, as the size of a colony declines, it’s possible that unaltered ferals from adjoining territories will move in to take advantage of the extra food and shelter.  Roger Tabor, in his book, The Wild Life of the Domestic Cat, first documented this "vacuum effect" which occurs when ferals are removed or eliminated from a location only to be quickly replaced by new cats.
Using a community-wide approach was successfully demonstrated in Newburyport, Massachusetts, which went from three hundred feral cats on its waterfront to six.  On Rikers Island in New York City, Neighborhood Cats, working with other groups, noted a 50% decrease in the population over the course of five years through adoption of friendly strays and sterilization of feral cats.
TNR is not new.  The practice goes back to at least the 1950s in Great Britain.  In the U.S., Ellen Perry Berkeley wrote the first extensive report on neuter and release in Cat Fancy.  This 1984 article was entitled, "Controlling Feral Cats."  She has also written two books on the subject, Maverick Cats: Encounters with Feral Cats and TNR Past, Present and Future:  A History of the Trap-Neuter-Return Movement. 
Those helping feral cats share two purposes:  reducing the number of feral cats over time and humanely treating feral cats.  A secondary goal of maximizing colony caretaker participation is also essential. Optimum is having a statewide feral cat council.  Since Connecticut already has the statewide Animal Welfare Federation of Connecticut (AWFCT), this is a reachable goal.  The council should include not only feral cat advocates, but also members of the wildlife community, public health agencies, and animal rescue groups and shelters.  An excellent model is the New York City Feral Cat Council (www.nycferalcat.org), part of the Mayor’s Alliance for New York City’s Animals.  Other models include those in San Diego (feralcat.com) and Seattle (feralspayneuter.org).  Kortis counsels, "Being a feral cat caretaker means also being a community activist."
For more on TNR, contact HSUS (www.hsus.org/feralcats) and the ASPCA (www.aspca.org), the two largest U.S. animal advocacy organizations.  Other resources include Alley Cat Allies (www.alleycat.org) and these advocacy organizations:  www.azcats.org and www.petsforlife.org  For veterinarians in your area that spay/neuter feral cats, contact SPAY/USA at 1-800-248-SPAY or Friends of Animals at 1-800-321-PETS.
Feral and stray cats produce about 80% of the kittens born each year.  They are the principal source of cat overpopulation.  Address cat overpopulation at its source by both effectively and humanely aiding feral cats through TNR.
For the animals,
Gregory M. Simpson
Gregory Simpson’s animal welfare involvement spans over 25 years, having provided leadership for several Connecticut organizations, as well as having served as state advisor to the national Friends of Animals.  Chosen by CAT FANCY magazine as one of the ultimate cat lovers in the U.S., he is also a member of the Cat Writers’ Association.