Municipalities must deal with a wide variety of issues involving animals, from dangerous dogs to animals on highways, alive and dead. Funds for the Animal Control Officer (ACO) are limited due to budget constraints and the ACO may not be experienced in dealing with certain issues, such as the problems involving feral or so-called neighborhood cats.
First, though, some brief background information on neighborhood cats generally.
Although a rough number, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) estimates that about 85% of owned cats are spayed or neutered, while only 2% of unowned or semi-owned cats (what we refer to as “neighborhood cats”) are spayed or neutered. These estimates also attribute about 80% of all kittens born each year to neighborhood cats.
There is, however, a way to spay or neuter these neighborhood cats (and vaccinate them), reducing the number of neighborhood cats born each year and, in turn, reducing their overall number over time. In “Return to Field” (RTF) programs, healthy, unowned cats are sterilized, ear tipped, vaccinated, and put back where they are found. Part of the rationale behind this approach is that these cats know how to survive on their own, so there is no need to euthanize them to avoid future suffering. This approach also helps reduce the financial and emotional burdens on shelters in having to euthanize healthy cats.
Similar programs, such as “Trap, Neuter, and Release” (TNR), which also includes spaying, are widely used throughout the country and offer another humane way to manage neighborhood cats. Should you decide to pursue a TNR program, you may find that there are resources in your community that are ready, willing, and able to help—animal rescue groups, wildlife agencies, and maybe just individual volunteers. The trapping part needs to be managed diligently—checking traps no less than once a day, and more often in cold or hot weather, is important to ensuring a humane process.
The HSUS guide Managing Community Cats, A Guide for Municipal Leaders contains a lot of useful information about which neighborhood cat population control methods have worked, those that have not worked, and where you might find funding in the form of grants or otherwise to help support your RTF/TNR efforts.
The Neighborhood Cats TNR Handbook contains detailed information about how to set up a TNR program, with potential funding sources found on page 151.
As Mark Twain once said: “If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.”
