(I have two content cats that live indoors, happily reducing the mouse population in my basement.)
I live in a rural area. When I moved here a couple of years ago I quickly became acquainted with a feral cat that shared my property. We had an unspoken agreement, "I won't bother you, if you don't bother me". Time passed without worry. I even found her to be beneficial; her main diet consisting of mice, rats and weasles, animals that can become a nusiance when you have pet rabbits and chickens. The wild birds were plentiful, their population appearing to not be affected by her presence.
Then she had kittens. I tried, unsuccessfully, to capture them and bring them to the neighborhood animal sancuary. My well meaning neighbor began putting cat food outside for the cats. Now I have a lot of feral cats wandering my property.
I have heard of a program where feral cats were being caught, spayed/neutered and released. The reasoning-- cats are generally territorial, if one is euthaized another will just take its place. However, if you leave the cat in its territory, take away its ability to procreate, it will keep other cats out of its territory and not add to the cat population; therefore reducing the overall number of feral cats proactively. Unfortunately, this theory only works when there are limited resources that the cats must compete for. Apparently, they are much more likily to share their territory when there are unlimited resourses, i.e. a well meaning neighbor feeding them. In a perfect world, everyone would spay/neuter their pets, love them, not dump them. Unfortunately, there are a lot of unwanted animal, many unadoptable. Feral cats can be hazerdous to humans, pets and the environment. What is the best and most humane/ethical way to deal with feral cats?
(A cougar has been spending a lot of its time at my neighbors house too. I wonder if it likes cat food?)
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Comments: 14
Cathy--My neighbor thinks that she is doing good. She doesn't understand that the cats, even though they look domestic, are now wild animals. My friend's daughter was bit by a feral cat in one of their out buildings. She called the humane society and animal control, but none were able to help her because she lived outside of their jurisdiction. So, she had to buy a live trap and catch it herself.
I have seen so many many negative and inhumane methods of dealing with unwanted or feral cats - most recently, in some areas close by the solution has been to find "colonies" and poison them with antifreeze laced hamburger.
Not acceptable.
I have heard recently of a mobile unit located somewhere in the Twin City area - I have been trying to contact them to address some like issues. If they are agreeable I would be willing to share this information. It is my opinion that this is a community problem that has to be handled humanely and with compassion.
One important thing is that we stererlize all domestic cats (and dogs) that are not being used specifically for breeding purposes. There are plenty of strays that were pets at one point in time.
For those that live in the country and want to have outdoor cats as pets (such as barn cats) they need to be sterelized and socialized from a young age. I've found they still wander but they know where home is. (with the exception of a friend's cat who moved next door, had her kittens in the neighbor's barn and hasn't moved 'home' since.) ;)
I just googled "trap neuter return" and got a lot of interesting results, there are a lot of organizations across the country doing this but I haven't heard of many (if any) in Minnesota.
I wonder if these programs are more common in urban & suburban areas (NYC) than in places like Minnesota and the midwest where we have so much farm land....