The Fight Over Ferals

Kill Them or Care for Them?

The problem begins with us. People abandon their domestic cats, those cats begin a new life in the "wild," start having kittens and suddenly you've got a feral cat population.

A feral cat is simply a domestic cat who was raised by cats instead of people. If Mom was kicked out on the streets by her family, and Baby was raised in the alley, then Baby wasn't raised to be domestic. By about 12 weeks, she's too old to learn how to be a pet.

So what to do with all those feral cats or alley cats who can't be turned into pets? Some say "kill them." But others say, "spay them and return them to their homes," otherwise known as trap/neuter/return.

The Vacuum Effect - Why killing never works

Dr. Julie Levy of the University of Florida's College of Veterinary Medicine explains that cats can begin having babies at six months. Within two years, one feral cat can multiply into 30 unless it's been spayed. And in the year 2001, says Alley Cat Allies, there were over 60 million feral cats in the USA. That's a huge population!

Rounding these cats up and killing them doesn't solve the problem. Have you ever heard that more boys than girls are born after a war? Well, by some similar genetic awareness, when a large number of cats are rounded up off the streets and killed, the few that aren't caught seem to "overbreed" to fill the void. It's called The Vacuum Effect, and animals seem to know instinctively how to fill the void.

The Right Answer

In contrast, counties and cities around the country that have implemented a trap/neuter/return policy seem to be getting results. When Orange County, Florida, for example, began providing trap equipment to citizens and offering free spay/neuter to any feral cats brought in to be re-released, complaint calls about stray cats went down by 20 percent.

Dispatching an officer to answer each complaint costs them $75 a pop, so reducing those calls by 20 percent saves a lot of money! Says Linda Haller, manager of Orange County Animal Services,

"TNR stops the cycle because it stops the breeding."

John Queenan, animal control officer of Cape May, New Jersey, reports a similar finding in his city. Before the government implemented a trap/neuter/return policy, he received between 80 and 100 feral cat complaints per year. In 2001, he was down to 20 per year.

It's Good for Humans, Too!

Even people whose primary concern is humans rather than cats are pleased with the results of trap/neuter/return. Atlantic City is deeply concerned with making tourists feel comfortable. When the feral cat population seemed to be disturbing them, Ron Cash of the Atlantic City Health Department reported,

"We went shopping for solutions, and we found TNR. It works."

Furthermore, according to Connie Graham of CARE Feline Rescue in Orlando, Florida, it costs over $100 to pick up a feral cat, take care of it for a while and then slaughter it. But two to three cats can be spayed, vaccinated and returned for the same price!

Why is it so much cheaper? One of the reasons is so obvious it can easily be overlooked. People are willing to volunteer to help trap/neuter/return programs. Counties can find citizens willing to do the trapping and feeding, and veterinarians willing to do the neutering. But it's not easy to find anyone willing to donate their time to kill animals! Citizens simply feel better about helping with a trap/neuter/return program.

In fact, Orange County, Florida has improved community relations so much by implementing their TNR program that adoptions rose from 1995 to 2001 by over 200 percent! Why? Says Linda Haller,

"People have recognized now that we are there to help and we want to do something positive. Community trust is continuing to expand."

Clay Criswell, executive director of Western Pennsylvania's Humane Society, agrees. Since Pittsburgh implemented a TNR program, he reports, "People who used to hate us now love us."
 

Trap/neuter/return is cheaper, more effective, and better for community relations than trap, shelter, kill. And that's without mentioning the most obvious argument of all in its favor:

It doesn't involve killing big-eyed, darling furry cats who want nothing more than to live out their lives like the rest of us.

Statistical information provided by Alley Cat Allies.

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