Feral cats. Locally, the latest outcry against these misunderstood and often persecuted felines is from a neighborhood in the Pleasant Valley section of Methuen (The Eagle-Tribune, April 25). However, you will find feral cats in virtually every urban, suburban and rural community — wherever an adequate food source and rudimentary shelter exists. Possible locations include alleyways, parking lots, vacant buildings, fields, woods, boatyards and backyards. It's the presence of feral cats in backyards that is making life not so pleasant for some people in Pleasant Valley.
Simply stated, feral cats are the offspring of lost or abandoned domesticated cats and are accustomed to living outside, typically in cat colonies, rather than inside homes with human families. Sometimes, a cat may have once belonged to a human family but has lived outside for so long and without direct human contact that this cat, like those cats born outside, reverts to its innate feral nature.
Without the love, protection and creature comforts given a cat who sleeps each night at the foot of a human's bed (or on a human's bed pillow), a feral cat's "wild" nature is what helps it to stay alive. Far from being a scary attribute, a cat's feral instinct is the cat's survival mechanism. Also, contrary to their fear-provoking reputation, feral cats are far more fearful than fearsome in any unlikely interactions with humans. And with good reason.
Too often, the "human instinct" is to eradicate (that is, exterminate) feral cat colonies. But eradication does not work. Crassly, but accurately, known as "trap and kill," this method provides only a temporary solution to the feral cat problem. Because the presence of feral cats is dependent upon habitat — unless a habitat is completely altered to eliminate all possible food sources — even if all the cats are removed, sooner or later another feral colony will move into the vacated territory. This situation is known as "the vacuum effect," and the cycle of breeding begins anew.
Altering a habitat to make it an unsustainable environment for feral cats is a futile undertaking. Unsealed trash cans, an open Dumpster, or just one person sympathetic to the cats who leaves food for them will keep the environment a sustainable feral cat habitat.
Trap-neuter-return is the only effective — and humane — solution to managing feral cat populations. Instead of killing the cats, attrition becomes the natural manner in which, eventually, a feral cat colony eliminates itself. Because the cats have been sterilized, thousands of feral kittens will not be born.
The tenets of TNR are humanely trapping feral cats, neutering the males and spaying the females, vaccinating against rabies, notching the tip of one of the cats' ears (as a visual identifier of a cat that has been TNR'ed), and returning the cats to their habitat.
Ideally, once the cats are returned to their habitat, a dedicated person or persons will monitor the cat colony and the cats' welfare. As the cats' human caregivers, they will ensure that the cats are fed each day and have adequate shelter for protection against the elements. They will also be able to note any possible "new arrivals" to the feral colony in order to get these newcomers spayed or neutered, thus preventing future litters of kittens.
TNR literally alters a troublesome community situation. Fighting within feral cat colonies, attributed mostly to male cats, subsides when the males are neutered. Gone is the "territorial spraying" with its accompanying unpleasant odor. Gone also is the late-night "caterwauling" — the howling and yowling that keeps neighbors awake. The cats' wanderlust (straying through a neighborhood) is curbed because they remain where their known food source is located. Even wildlife predation decreases, because the population of feral cats decreases. And the cats are healthier and less likely to harbor disease.
But humane feral cat management through TNR must be a community-supported and community-driven initiative. Ordinary citizens, civic leaders, animal control officers, municipal animal shelters and local veterinarians need to become a coalition where everyone involved is an alliance in humanely and effectively solving a community's feral cat problem.
The city of Newburyport provides the perfect example for the success for TNR.
With its waterfront once overrun with hundreds of feral cats, today only a handful of these cats remain. The founding of the Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society in 1992 acted as a catalyst for solving this port city's feral cat problem. Garnering support from the Chamber of Commerce, local business owners, area veterinarians and local citizens, MRFRS first-volunteers worked efficiently and effectively to sterilize the city's feral cat population.
The testament of a successful community TNR initiative, in addition to stabilizing and improving the health of feral cat populations, is when the community at large recognizes the results. For those in the community to whom the cats have been a source of annoyance, that annoyance is gone — because the annoying behavior of the cats is gone. For those in the community who have felt compassion and concern for the cats' welfare, their worry is abated because volunteer caregivers now look after the cats. And those in charge of municipal funding are relieved not to drain budgets and waste money by trying to enforce impractical, ineffective and inhumane feral cat management.
Of course, the cats themselves offer the greatest testament of successful TNR. As citizens of every community, feral cats are a reflection of a community's compassion, acumen, commitment and dedication to implementing a civilized and humanitarian solution.
Locally, Animal Rescue Merrimack Valley (www.armv.org) and the Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society (www.mrfrs.org) can offer assistance and advice for successful TNR. The MRFRS provides free monthly spay/neuter clinics for feral cats. Additionally, both ARMV and MRFRS can help with low-cost spay/neuter programs for pet owners who may not be able to afford the full cost for sterilizing their companion animals. Failure to spay or neuter pet cats is the root cause of feral cat populations.
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Kathy Downey of Byfield is a volunteer with the Merrimack Valley Feline Rescue Society.
