Caturday
July 13, 2024 8:46 AM Subscribe
The City’s Crawling With Feral Cats Volunteers are the only thing standing between the city and a stream of sick cats. They’re barely making a dent. They’re barely making a dent. By Molly Osberg For New York. Please support your local TNR: As she introduced me to each cat, she ran down her daily routine: Clean half a dozen litter boxes, feed the cats, dole out medication in “nine to 15 little bowls,” send a round of emails to vets in the hopes of getting discounted checkups and scans. “And then, of course, I’ll try to get some content,” she says. “Because if there’s no content, we’re not getting people’s freaking coffee money to donate towards our, like, exploded eyeball surgery.”
The one cat who comes inside to sleep with me showed up in a rainstorm, jumping around on the roof to get my attention. Mostly sweet, only occasionally checks to see if she can break my wrist with her bird killing move. Steadfastly refuses to use a litter box inside, even in an ice storm.
The 6-8 additional outside cats are the result of an unfixed mother a couple blocks away. I worked with a group to TNR most of them, but there’s one Tom who avoided the traps and now gets aggressive with the others.
The downside of their outdoor lifestyle is the constant threat of raccoons. The upside is no litter boxes. I did spot some suspicious mounds of gravel in a neighborhood driveway. Sorry neighbor 😋
posted by funkaspuck at 9:59 AM on July 13 [1 favorite]
The 6-8 additional outside cats are the result of an unfixed mother a couple blocks away. I worked with a group to TNR most of them, but there’s one Tom who avoided the traps and now gets aggressive with the others.
The downside of their outdoor lifestyle is the constant threat of raccoons. The upside is no litter boxes. I did spot some suspicious mounds of gravel in a neighborhood driveway. Sorry neighbor 😋
posted by funkaspuck at 9:59 AM on July 13 [1 favorite]
The women I've known who do TnR are dedicated as hell and you do not mess with their efforts at the risk of getting read the riot act. It's so much work and people like the one neighbor in the article (the one who got mad about the neuter aspect) don't make it any easier.
One of my favorite TnR people got so frustrated with all the issues that she encountered that she said screw it and in her 30's went back to school and became a vet. She now travels around various communities of need offering services to the local population. Always admire the amount of tenacity it took to pull that off.
Meanwhile, my two feline fuzzballs, rescued from a hoarders house, think it's the height of cruelty if their food dish starts to run a bit shallow. My mom's five, down from a high of nine, need everything set just so else there's much annoyance.
The dogs aren't much better (looking at the 19.5 year old chihuahua who wanted more steak on his breakfast before he'd eat his meds)
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:21 AM on July 13 [5 favorites]
One of my favorite TnR people got so frustrated with all the issues that she encountered that she said screw it and in her 30's went back to school and became a vet. She now travels around various communities of need offering services to the local population. Always admire the amount of tenacity it took to pull that off.
Meanwhile, my two feline fuzzballs, rescued from a hoarders house, think it's the height of cruelty if their food dish starts to run a bit shallow. My mom's five, down from a high of nine, need everything set just so else there's much annoyance.
The dogs aren't much better (looking at the 19.5 year old chihuahua who wanted more steak on his breakfast before he'd eat his meds)
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:21 AM on July 13 [5 favorites]
From the article: Cat advocates attribute the booming stray population to an increase in the cost of living — rising rents, inflation, spay-neuter appointments that can cost over $500 at for-profit vets, forcing owners to make a decision between taking care of their cats and taking care of their human kids. Last summer, the underfunded city-associated shelter system, the Animal Care Centers of New York, put a temporary hold on taking new pets — they were at “critical capacity,” they said.
Obviously it's not the only issue contributing to the problem of feral cats, but it's heartbreaking how hard it can be to find resources to help with pet care when you're in a bad place.
There are too many worthy causes to contribute to them all, of course, but if this is something you want to help with, there is probably an organization near you that works on keeping pets with their families. In Baltimore, BARCS has a Keeping Pets With Families program in addition to trying to link folks to pet food banks and sliding scale vet care.
posted by the primroses were over at 12:01 PM on July 13 [3 favorites]
Obviously it's not the only issue contributing to the problem of feral cats, but it's heartbreaking how hard it can be to find resources to help with pet care when you're in a bad place.
There are too many worthy causes to contribute to them all, of course, but if this is something you want to help with, there is probably an organization near you that works on keeping pets with their families. In Baltimore, BARCS has a Keeping Pets With Families program in addition to trying to link folks to pet food banks and sliding scale vet care.
posted by the primroses were over at 12:01 PM on July 13 [3 favorites]
I had never seen many stray/outdoor/feral cats in Chicago until I moved to the neighborhood where I am now about 5 years ago. There are so many cats here.
In December of 2020 a tiny 6-week old kitten with goopy, crusty eyes and nose showed up in our backyard all alone, and we managed to catch her with a towel and the help of a neighbor and ended up rehabilitating her and integrating her with our other two cats and two dogs as a fully indoor cat. She’s the BEST but it was my first time having to pay out of pocket for all of that first year care - the vaccines and the spay and everything - and it’s SO expensive if you’re paying retail. Our other two cats came from PAWS and I think they practically paid us to take them.
A couple years ago, an adult feral was wintering in our backyard on our outdoor couch that had a cover where he could stay warm and dry. I fed him occasionally, and he decided to thank me by constantly pissing all over everything in our backyard. I resolved to TNR him, but then he showed up with a tipped ear; I knew there was someone managing a feral colony because there’s a house a block over with a bunch of outdoor cat shelters, and I was so relieved she had gotten him.
When he showed up limping one day I left a note on the door of the house asking what I should do, and that’s how I ended up connected to a network of 3 women in our neighborhood who keep an eye on the cat population and manage the feral colonies.
I’ve not trapped any myself, but because my partner and I are walking our dogs around the neighborhood every day we’re able to alert them if we see new cats/kittens. They trapped a new litter we noticed last summer and got them all spayed/neutered, including the mama that was already pregnant again (spay-abort is the move if you trap a feral pregnant cat; there’s just no need to bring new kittens into a world that is already overflowing with them.) They know the tricks of how to get the cheap/free appointments at the spay/neuter clinics that the various shelters run and have the whole thing down to a science.
It’s thankless work, though, in a neighborhood where culturally it’s very normal and acceptable to have indoor/outdoor cats and not get them fixed. It’s a delicate balance between working with residents who are caring (or often more like half-caring - setting out leftover human food but not really committing to feeding them properly or getting them medical care) for the cats and just doing what needs to be done if they can trap them. Their rule is basically they have to work with the caregiver if they are trapping on their property, obviously, but if the cat is wandering somewhere else they have permission to set a trap, it’s fair game to get neutered and released.
posted by misskaz at 12:59 PM on July 13 [5 favorites]
In December of 2020 a tiny 6-week old kitten with goopy, crusty eyes and nose showed up in our backyard all alone, and we managed to catch her with a towel and the help of a neighbor and ended up rehabilitating her and integrating her with our other two cats and two dogs as a fully indoor cat. She’s the BEST but it was my first time having to pay out of pocket for all of that first year care - the vaccines and the spay and everything - and it’s SO expensive if you’re paying retail. Our other two cats came from PAWS and I think they practically paid us to take them.
A couple years ago, an adult feral was wintering in our backyard on our outdoor couch that had a cover where he could stay warm and dry. I fed him occasionally, and he decided to thank me by constantly pissing all over everything in our backyard. I resolved to TNR him, but then he showed up with a tipped ear; I knew there was someone managing a feral colony because there’s a house a block over with a bunch of outdoor cat shelters, and I was so relieved she had gotten him.
When he showed up limping one day I left a note on the door of the house asking what I should do, and that’s how I ended up connected to a network of 3 women in our neighborhood who keep an eye on the cat population and manage the feral colonies.
I’ve not trapped any myself, but because my partner and I are walking our dogs around the neighborhood every day we’re able to alert them if we see new cats/kittens. They trapped a new litter we noticed last summer and got them all spayed/neutered, including the mama that was already pregnant again (spay-abort is the move if you trap a feral pregnant cat; there’s just no need to bring new kittens into a world that is already overflowing with them.) They know the tricks of how to get the cheap/free appointments at the spay/neuter clinics that the various shelters run and have the whole thing down to a science.
It’s thankless work, though, in a neighborhood where culturally it’s very normal and acceptable to have indoor/outdoor cats and not get them fixed. It’s a delicate balance between working with residents who are caring (or often more like half-caring - setting out leftover human food but not really committing to feeding them properly or getting them medical care) for the cats and just doing what needs to be done if they can trap them. Their rule is basically they have to work with the caregiver if they are trapping on their property, obviously, but if the cat is wandering somewhere else they have permission to set a trap, it’s fair game to get neutered and released.
posted by misskaz at 12:59 PM on July 13 [5 favorites]
At our house, we are relative novices in the local TNR community. We support some of the local saints- they are not people to be messed with, as drewbage1847 indicates. We’ve TNRed four ferals in our own yard, fostered five litters of kittens, seven adults from a local hoard (permanently adopting two of the most problematic who would never find homes), and donating to various causes as they arise.
It never ends. It reminds me of one of the Earthsea books, where Ged compares burning himself out of magic to escape The Dry Land: “like pouring out a little water, a cup of water onto the sand. In the Dry Land. I had to do that. But now I have nothing to drink. And what difference, what difference did it make, does it make, one cup of water in all the desert? Is the desert gone?” And still we pour it away.
posted by notoriety public at 1:22 PM on July 13
It never ends. It reminds me of one of the Earthsea books, where Ged compares burning himself out of magic to escape The Dry Land: “like pouring out a little water, a cup of water onto the sand. In the Dry Land. I had to do that. But now I have nothing to drink. And what difference, what difference did it make, does it make, one cup of water in all the desert? Is the desert gone?” And still we pour it away.
posted by notoriety public at 1:22 PM on July 13
My mother spent over a decade working with a few other women to TNR the feral cat colony at Cal State Long Beach, which took a lot of time and money (they didn't maintain litterboxes, but the cats were all fed with both dry and wet food, sheltered, watered, and taken for vet treatment at the feeders' own expense). Most of the adult cats were unadoptable, although a few were successfully homed--an unneutered classic Siamese (!) who was clearly a stray rather than feral, a super-friendly grey, and a funny runt named Suzy Q whom my mother took in; when the campus turned a junk lot into parking, the group took a bunch of displaced cats to Cat House on the Kings. All three of my parents' current cats were abandoned on campus as kittens. There were occasional bursts of public interest when the administration got unhappy with all the cats roaming about, but by the time Mom stopped, about two years ago, the neutering had reduced the colony from well over a hundred to about zero. (Of course, then the group started getting requests from faculty to bring more cats in, as the rats and mice quickly set up shop in the office buildings, but that's a different issue...)
posted by thomas j wise at 1:53 PM on July 13
posted by thomas j wise at 1:53 PM on July 13
How effective and humane is TNR for feral cats?
posted by Captaintripps at 2:03 PM on July 13 [2 favorites]
posted by Captaintripps at 2:03 PM on July 13 [2 favorites]
Interesting. I would like to see a similar survey of the effectiveness of lethal control of cat colonies.
posted by bq at 2:16 PM on July 13 [1 favorite]
posted by bq at 2:16 PM on July 13 [1 favorite]
Is TNR a guaranteed method of solving problems related to feral cat colonies? No, and most will openly agree with that. They are attempting to make a dent, not wave a magic wand and fix everything (no pun intended).
Do they make a difference in the lives of the cats that they can help? Damn straight. And that, in and of itself, is enough for me.
Another . and eternal Churu for the legendary Grandpa Mason.
posted by delfin at 2:45 PM on July 13 [3 favorites]
Do they make a difference in the lives of the cats that they can help? Damn straight. And that, in and of itself, is enough for me.
Another . and eternal Churu for the legendary Grandpa Mason.
posted by delfin at 2:45 PM on July 13 [3 favorites]
I'm stuck that the review Captaintripps shared seems to assess whether TNR decreases feral cat populations, while I thought the whole benefit was just to stop the increase of feral cat populations. Have I been misunderstanding the value proposition? I did skim the article.
posted by c'mon sea legs at 3:22 PM on July 13 [1 favorite]
posted by c'mon sea legs at 3:22 PM on July 13 [1 favorite]
I got my two former LIC shop/street cats from a rescue nonprofit that does this work. They're taking care of so many cats. I try to donate to the work when I can, and share cute photos of cats they're adopting out, but yeah... Their margins (of money, time, and energy) are so thin, and they always need people to foster and socialize kittens.
posted by limeonaire at 4:12 PM on July 13
posted by limeonaire at 4:12 PM on July 13
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posted by GiantSlug at 9:40 AM on July 13 [2 favorites]