TNR Handbook - Neighborhood Cats

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The Neighborhood Cats TNR Handbook e) Cost savings. Lower euthanasia rates at local shelters, fewer complaint calls for animal control and the use of a large volunteer work force all save money for municipalities. For example, in San Diego County, TNR was introduced in 1992 and in two years resulted in a 40% drop in euthanasia rates. Based on how much it cost the local shelter to intake, hold and euthanize each cat, the decline saved the county hundreds of thousands of dollars. f) Gaining caretaker cooperation. Caretakers know the cats’ numbers, whereabouts and habits, and they can withhold food and facilitate the trapping. Their cooperation is crucial for a successful attempt at feral cat population control. TNR gains their assistance because the cats will not be harmed, whereas attempts to trap and euthanize provoke caretaker resistance. g) Improved public relations for animal control. When animal control supports TNR instead of trying to round up and kill the cats, their public image improves. This can lead to more volunteers, more people coming to municipal shelters to adopt cats and improved fundraising. • Failed alternatives to TNR One of the most persuasive reasons for doing Trap-Neuter-Return is that nothing else works! Whether the goal is population reduction or lowered nuisance behavior, no other technique has been shown to have a realistic chance of long-term success. An examination of the available alternatives makes this plain. Trap and kill “Trap and kill” has been the predominant approach by animal control agencies in the U.S. for decades. Trapping feral cats, carting them off to a shelter and then euthanizing them may, in the short term, reduce the population in a given area. But in most cases this reduction is only temporary and eventually the cat population returns to its former level. There are several reasons for this: The vacuum effect Feral cat colonies spring up and subsist in certain locations because the habitat provides adequate food and shelter for them to survive. When a colony is removed from a location, but the habitat is left unchanged, unneutered cats from neighboring colonies sooner or later will move into the vacant territory to take advantage of the still remaining food and shelter and the cycle starts all over again. This phenomenon, termed the “vacuum effect,” was first documented by wildlife biologist Roger Tabor in his studies of London street cats (Tabor, Roger, The Wild Life of the Domestic Cat (1983).) Altering the habitat to remove the food source is difficult to achieve as a practical matter. All it takes to create a source is an unsealed dumpster, open garbage cans or one person leaving out cans of food when they spot a cat. Trying to stop people from feeding is virtually impossible. In the face of feeding bans with civil and criminal penalties, experience has shown that compassionate people will persist, one way or another. 5
The Neighborhood Cats TNR Handbook Overbreeding Trapping all the members of a feral colony requires a sustained and dedicated effort. Few animal control agencies have the resources to accomplish this and, instead, usually put out some traps, catch who they catch and then move on to the next problem. Inevitably, some cats are left behind. These cats now have less competition for the food and shelter remaining at the site. As a result, they will give birth more frequently and more of their kittens will survive until the former population level is again attained. Abandonment Domestic cats are constantly being abandoned into the outdoors and typically they are not neutered. They too, can quickly repopulate a suitable territory from which a feral colony has been removed, but food and shelter remain. Lack of animal control resources Few cities or towns have the resources to even consider trying to trap all the feral cats inhabiting their municipalities. In large cities, for example, where there are relatively few animal control officers and feral populations in at least the tens of thousands, trap and kill as an overall solution is simply not an option. These four factors – the vacuum effect, overbreeding, abandonment and lack of animal control resources – combine to render trap and kill completely ineffectual as a method of feral and stray cat population control. Communities that continue to utilize this method experience constant levels from year to year of seized cats, complaints and euthanasia rates. These unchanging levels indicate all that is being accomplished is population turnover rather than reduction – new feline faces, but not fewer. Stop feeding At first glance, this method has the appeal of simplicity – don’t feed the cats and they’ll go away. The problem is, unless there is another food source nearby, they won’t. Feral cats are extremely territorial and will not wander far in search of food. Rather than leaving, they tend to come closer, taking more risks in encroaching on human habitations as they grow increasingly desperate to find something to eat. In addition, a cat can go without food for several weeks and continue to reproduce. Trying to starve out cats results only in hungry, unhealthy animals vulnerable to disease and severe parasitic infestations, such as fleas. What might have seemed like a simple solution ends up making the situation much worse. Furthermore, nothing is harder than trying to stop people from putting out food once they know there are cats in need. People will risk their jobs, their apartments and even bodily harm to prevent the animals from starving. Attempts to make feral cats go away by banning feeding usually result in suffering for the cats and increased conflict with feeders, but little else. Rescue or relocation The goal that all ferals should be rescued and placed in homes is not realistic. There are far too many cats and too few homes for this to happen. Perhaps one day this will 6
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• Hard-to-catch cats The Neighbor
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• Directions for use by Laura Bur
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TNR Handbook - Neighborhood Cats

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