How to Help Feral and Stray Cats in Your Community
If you’re a cat enthusiast, you probably already know that the problem of overpopulation involving stray and feral cats is a huge contributor to overcrowding in shelters nationwide. Perhaps you have a cat of your own, or maybe you just want to help out without taking one into your home. If that sounds like you, consider helping out with a community cat program in your area. Many cities already have them in place, but if yours doesn’t, then you could start one of your own. Many shelters or rescue organizations offer funding or subsidized services to help individuals who are interested in starting a program to care for feral cats. The North Shore Animal League is one shelter that offers such services.
Read on to learn about ways that you can help feral and stray cats through a community cat program, what programs are available to take care of them, and how you can start your own if you’re so inclined.
What Is A Feral Cat?
It used to be that very few people understood the term “feral” cat, but that is beginning to change. Due to increased education and reports in the news media, most people now know what a feral cat is. Feral cats are unsocialized cats that live in cat colonies outdoors. Many of them are extremely fearful of people and often cannot be approached. Cats that live in a colony together often share a common food source and have a defined territory. Some of the cats may be former house pets that have been either lost or abandoned, also known as “strays.” Most feral cat colonies result from unneutered stray cats.
Feral cats are not considered wildlife, although they live outside in the wild. Most feral cats still rely on a human food source of some kind, rather than subsisting solely on hunting for their own food. There are different degrees of feral cats, and they can be feral and non-feral at different points in their lives. Some cats can be re-socialized quite easily, while for others, living with humans may never be an option. So now the question remains, how can you care for these community cats if they can’t be brought into your home?
Spay/Neuter Programs
The most effective way to reduce the community cat population is by implementing spay/neuter programs in your area. There are numerous Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) programs across the United States and Canada that are on a mission to ensure that all of these feral cats are sterilized. In a TNR program, community cats are humanely trapped in a box trap and brought into a local shelter or vet’s office participating in the program. Here, the cats are sterilized, vaccinated, and ear-tipped. An ear-tip is a universal sign that a feral cat has been sterilized and vaccinated before. It involves the painless surgical removal of a small part of the tip of a cat’s ear (either on the left or right side), and it is an easy way to identify cats that have been seen by a vet but are not suitable for adoption. Subsequently, the community cats are re-released in the same area where they were found.
While many community cat programs offer different services, the Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) strategy is at the heart of every community cat program. TNR is the foundation of these programs and the best way to humanely reduce community cat populations. Any cats retrieved through TNR programs that show signs that they might make a good family pet can be taken in to a shelter and later adopted out. However, many community cats will never become family pets, and TNR programs can help.
Ways to Secure Funding for Your Community Cat Program
If you’re ready to start your own community cat program, there are many easy ways to begin. You will first need to secure funding for your operation through donations or small community grants. You should work to grow your funding as soon as possible. Since community cats are sometimes a public health concern, contact your public health officials with your information. Many shelters offer subsidy funding programs, as well. At the North Shore Animal League, individuals are welcome to send in applications between the 1st and 15th of each month.
Volunteers will be extremely helpful to your cat program, so you should try and recruit people to help you trap the feral cats in your area for TNR programs. In the same vein, you should seek donations to help keep you running. Ask about donations of cat food and humane traps at local businesses. After the program is up and running, you should track your statistics. You’ll want to have numbers to demonstrate your impact on the community. And don’t exclude people who feed cats but don’t participate in the spay/neuter efforts. Many of them might be happy to help and could become loving pet owners themselves at a later time.