The Strange, Hidden World of Feral Cats

By Miss Cellania in Animals & Pets on Dec 10, 2009 at 10:53 am

Denver, Colorado is home to tens of thousands of stray cats. They form colonies and breed uncontrollably. Destroying or relocating the cats only opens up space for more cats to move in. Local animal welfare groups are trying a different approach, but the job is overwhelming. Kristin Des Marais and Amy Angelilli of the Rocky Mountain Alley Cat Alliance are among those battling the feral cat population problem.

Thirty thousand cats are euthanized every year in Colorado, double the rate of dogs. Many are homeless cats considered unsuitable for adoption. Working with RMACA, Des Marais and other volunteers are trying to reduce the kill rate by trapping ferals, spaying or neutering them, then returning them — in effect, transforming the entire colony from feral to sterile so that it will eventually die out on its own. But trap-neuter-return, or TNR, is a controversial solution, often unpopular with communities afflicted by the colonies.

“More often than not, people will call and say, ‘Come pick up these cats,’” Angelilli explains. “They think we have a special vehicle we drive around and pick up stray cats and bring them to this utopia in the country. If people knew about TNR and why it works — but it needs to start before the population gets out of control. By the time people call us about the problem, they’re usually so fed up that they just want the cats gone.”

Tags: cats, Denver, feral cats, infestation, neuter, spay

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Spooty
Dec 10th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Glad to see TNR getting more publicity in the news and now in Neatorama. I’ve done it in a small way on my own property, having a stable group of 3 siblings that are fixed and happy. I’ve also rehomed several that were socialized enough to be adoptable.
It’s not about “OMG don’t kill the kitties!” It’s about the idea that a stable, sterile group is a better long-term solution than scattershot killing/removal that creates room for cleverer, un-caught cats to hide and breed like crazy. I hope more people learn about this.
Cnote
Dec 10th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Uh, I hate to sound callus but I think you could just shoot them with a .22 rim fire or .17 air rifle. Cheaper, more effective, and honestly just a cruel as kidnap, cut open, and release.
TimW
Dec 10th, 2009 at 11:36 am
I’m sorry, but I don’t see how this is supposed to really do anything. They will never be able to neuter every cat. To quote Jurassic Park, “life will find a way”. The cat population will always grow until it his some natural limit, probably available food supply.
SteveW
Dec 10th, 2009 at 11:51 am
The best solution help educate current and future pet owners – make an annual license tax on unneutered pets/a small inconsequential one for neutered, and a high fine for unlicensed pets all to help pay to reduce the feral population.
ted
Dec 10th, 2009 at 11:56 am
I just don’t get why people who own cats (or dogs) don’t spay or neuter them. I just don’t get it. If you can’t afford to do that, then you can’t afford to own the animal.
Zavatone
Dec 10th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Studying Biology of Populations will shed some insight onto this problem. The only animals that need to be neutered are the females. This approach is effectively used in population management. If you have 10 cats and 9 of them are female, you’re going to have a lot of kittens. If you have 10 cats and 1 of them is female you’re going to have one litter of kittens. That’s the basic rule of operation. Cats, as much as we love them, simply kill things because it is fun, whether they need to or not. They are responsible for reduced bird populations in many areas.
LisaL
Dec 10th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
ted- totally agree.
My brother is one of those people. For some unknown reason, he got himself 2 cats, and couldn’t afford to fix either one of them, and surprise surprise, the female had kittens, again and again, and probably again.
BlessedBlogger
Dec 10th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
We don’t have an animal overpopulation problem, we have a human undereducation problem. A few years ago we moved out into the desert to a little town near Death Valley so my husband could work at the navy base. The town has one tiny animal shelter, two vets and one animal rescue. It also had a huuuuge number of stray and feral cats. Many of these cats congregated around our apartment complex and we’d often feed them (we ended up rescuing four of them, one who was pregnant and as a result we have 12 cats). We tried to work with the shelter, rescue and vets to set up a Trap-Neuter-Release program because not only were the cats dying in the 120 degree heat, they were being eaten by the wolves and they caused a fair amount of car accidents and property damage. But the local government wouldn’t allocate any funds. The problem was that folks out in the middle of nowhere get lonely. So people working at the Navy base would adopt cats and dogs and then when they left in a couple years they’d dump them outside and move away. The local mindset was that ‘cats are wild animals, they can survive outside on their own’ and ‘Neutering causes mental and emotional problems’. The issue here is that HUMAN BEINGS aren’t educated about how to take care of animals, the need to spay/neuter and most importantly that animals are NOT disposable. When we adopt animals we have a responsibility to them just as we do to our children.
Splint Chesthair
Dec 10th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
It’s a problem that’s never going to go away. You can talk action, education, whatever but feral cats will always exist and will always cause problems. I lived in an apartment complex for 5 years. There were feral cats everywhere and the whole place smelled like it. I trapped about 15 cats over that time and male or female, took them to the local vet to get fixed. It worked, while I was doing it, the last two springs I was there I didn’t see any kittens. But alas, I didn’t get them all, or some non-sterile male and female moved in and 2 years later, BOOM, kittens all over the place, again.

See all it takes is two cats to out do all the work I did in 5 years. And you’re not going to get people to do half of what I did. It’s just never going to happen. People still have babies without planning, how can we expect feral cat populations to be controllable?
Brennan
Dec 10th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Three cat posts in a row!!
Miss Cellania
Dec 10th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Brennan, I saw that and wondered how long it would take for someone to notice.

However, the “lists” post is 9/10 NOT about cats, but had few usable pictures. And this last one does not have a picture of a cat. So maybe that evens it out a little!
Johnny Cat
Dec 10th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
I am Otto, a feral cat.
Minnesotastan
Dec 10th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
If this discussion thread is going to go on for a while, it might be useful to define the term “feral” now. There are subtle differences between feral cats and stray domestic cats. As indicated in the article, feral cats are offspring of domestic breeds, but are ones that have not been socialized to interact with humans – typically born outside a human home or abandoned shortly after birth.

A stray cat that has been abandoned as an adult will retain human interaction skills for a while and can often be readily adopted; over time it may however revert to feral instincts. A true, life-long feral cat presents unique difficulties in terms of management.
Jeffos
Dec 10th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
“Destroying or relocating the cats only opens up space for more cats to move in.”

Then what does neutering accomplish? Will there not be “more cats to move in” when the colony finally dies out?

As well-intentioned as neutering may be, it cannot solve the problem because the goal of neutering (killing off the colony) is only a longer-term method to achieve the same short-term result as destruction.
Zavatone
Dec 10th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Jeffos, neutering keeps a non reproductive member of the population present, reducing the reproductive potential of the population. That cat occupies some social space in the group. If another cat is to enter the population, it will have to fit in and sort out its dominance. Populations (groups) of certain animals have size limits as each animal competes for space, food, resources, etc. If you have 9 neutered cats in a group and one un-neutered male, the group has a reproductive potential of 0 at that moment. Statistics, Bio of Populations and Population Dynamics all apply here and amazingly, lots of this has been mathematically figured out and tested in the real world. I wonder if anyone can find some of these studies on teh webs?
Ralph
Dec 10th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
This works very well. I am from Marathon in the Florida Keys and we have had a system like this for at least 10 years. It took a few years to take hold but it works like a charm.What we have is a reasonable number if stable cats with their own territories which shrinks slowly and includes almost no young cats. These cats tend to live for a long time because the conditions there are great for cats. We love having them there. In time careless people will reintroduce fertile cats but Forgotten Felines will cone and spay or neuter them too and the few that escape can make sure that we are never entirely cat-less. It works.
LisaL
Dec 10th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
As has been said, if people weren’t stupid and actually got their pet cats fixed, this wouldn’t be a problem. But people get cats and let them out not caring what it’s doing to the wildlife around their area, or about the potential of them adding to the feral cat population.
Sue Young
Dec 10th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
My mother in law lives in Carlsbad, NM. They’ve been fixing feral cats and notching ears for several years. It does seem to help, the colonies are stabilizing.

Two of her kitties are from the shelter and are super friendly and well behaved, one even has a notched ear so she was feral at one time. You wouldn’t know it, she’s very friendly. Of course the third cat is a total brat that has never missed a meal its entire life. I really recommend shelter kitties, they know when they’ve got it good.
Peach
Dec 10th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
You can have your cat spayed or neutered at the humane society for a lower fee than at a veterinarians.
K!P
Dec 11th, 2009 at 3:56 am
@18: the cats we had had notched ears. never was feral. sometimes they go out and play a little on the ruff side
bubdibub
Dec 11th, 2009 at 9:25 am
Man, I’m sorry to be rude but I’m astonished by the stupidity in some of the comments here. Really, wow. In other countries this sorta action with the neutering works very well and there is no problem with feral cats. Just look at Germany.
Really guys, I really don’t want to think that the majority of the USA is retarded, but you people make it really really really hard.
Gauldar
Dec 11th, 2009 at 9:52 am
@Bubdibub

There is an overabundance of short term thinking, also here in Canada. It’s nothing to worry about, luckily those that think the least, do just as much to actually help fix the problem in the first place.

@Johnny Cat

I had to watch that movie with the sound off; the computer voice was freaking me out.
LauraFM
Dec 11th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
“The only animals that need to be neutered are the females.”

Actually, neutering only the males would be equally effective, not to mention cheaper and faster because it requires less invasive surgery.

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