TNR Handbook - Neighborhood Cats

The Neighborhood Cats TNR Handbook
determining whether a cat belongs to a managed colony. In progressive systems, animal
control will not trap an eartipped cat or, if the cat has been turned into a shelter by a
private party, will attempt to locate the caretaker.
For many caretakers and veterinarians new to working with feral cats, there is initially
a negative reaction to eartipping. It is seen as a kind of mutilation of the animal and
attempts are made to find some other, less invasive means of identification. By now, all
other methods attempted have proved failures.
Eartagging involves the insertion of a metal clip into the side of the ear. The method
suffers from a number of defects. Ear tags were designed for certain domestic farm
animals, not for free-roaming cats. The tags are small and almost impossible to observe
at a distance. In addition, experience has shown that sometimes they do fall off. They
can get caught in twigs and thin branches and cause tears with subsequent infections.
Tattooing the inner ear provides no visual cue for determining whether a cat has
already been altered without having to trap her first. Even when the cat is in the trap, it
often cannot be discerned out in the field whether a tattoo is present or not. Instead, only
after the cat has been brought to the clinic and sedated can this be determined. The
practice of tattooing also potentially increases the risk of disease transmission. Unless
the tattooing instruments are sterilized after use on each cat, blood to blood transmission
of germs is possible.
Photos are impractical because it’s hard to take good ones, they’re not always
available right when you need to look at them, and no visual cue is provided for third
parties like animal control or a concerned neighbor unaware of your work. In addition,
photos are not even helpful to the caretaker in colonies where many of the cats share
similar appearances, such as an all tabby or all black colony.
Doing nothing except relying on the caretaker’s knowledge of the colony is risky,
even when the caretaker knows the cats extremely well. If the caretaker changes, there’s
no record. In addition, as with photos, there’s no visual cue for third parties.
While in an ideal world, there would be no need to tip a feral cat’s ear, in truth it is far
less invasive a procedure than the spay or neuter itself. Because it serves a vital purpose,
and because there is value in having one universally known symbol of identification,
eartipping should always be part of the standard feral protocol.
• FIV/FeLV testing
The vast majority of experienced TNR programs do not perform FIV/FeLV testing on
feral cats who are asymptomatic, meaning they are not showing signs of ill health. There
are several good reasons for this policy, which are discussed below:
1. Inefficient use of limited resources
Studies show the prevalence of FIV (feline aids) and FeLV (feline leukemia) in the
feral population is similar to that in the domestic cat population – approximately 4% have
FeLV and 2% have FIV. On average then, testing 1000 feral cats will result in the
identification of 60 cats who test positive for either FIV or FeLV. At a relatively low
cost of $10 per test, that would mean $10,000 needs to be spent to identify 60 positive
cats. That same $10,000 could be put instead towards neutering hundreds of ferals. If
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