How Trap, Neuter, Return has Transformed Animal Welfare

Annie Guion - Brattleboro, VT

Animal welfare organizations owns who? Towns don’t have leash laws (AWO) have made huge advances in how we work with cats. It used to be that stray cats who weren’t friendly or healthy were euthanized in shelters. Euthanasia is not cheap and it’s hard on staff. Legal requirements to hold a stray for 5 or more days led to overworked staff and a shelter full of terrorized cats whose fate was euthanasia after days of torturous imprisonment. Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) programs spay/ neuter and vaccinate healthy cats, friendly or not, and returns them to where they were found.

Most cats found outside are within a few doors of their home. Because people are less likely to put a collar on a cat, and microchips require a scanner, it is easy for Joe Public to assume a cat is a stray, but more often than not, the cat has a home…or multiple homes. Many cats work the system, having breakfast at one house, afternoon nap at another, dinner at a third and bedtime at yet another unsuspecting “cat owner’s” home. Who for cats. It is not illegal for a cat to roam the neighborhood, looking for cat friends, food and sunny places. Bringing a cat to a shelter is a good way to ensure it does not get back to its home. Nationwide, an estimated 2% of cats are claimed in shelters. At the Windham County Humane Society, that figure is 21%. Better, but by no means good. Research shows that when a dog goes missing, owners start looking that day. Cat owners wait 3 or more days, often assuming their cat has been hit by a car or been eaten by a predator. The cultural bias against collars on cats is a problem. Owned cats end up in shelters or roaming free in local colonies and predating on wildlife, including songbirds. If the cats have not been sterilized, a small population can grow at an alarming rate. Just removing cats from a colony doesn’t actually work. Trapping and euthanizing cats leads to the “vacuum effect”. Remove 30 cats and 30 more will move in! It's also very stressful for the cats to be moved to a new location. Keeping free-roaming cats in cages is inhumane. The best approach for managing community cats is TrapNeuter-Return. Researchers have found that you need to spay/neuter 75 % of a colony to stop population growth. Less than that and the reproduction rate will outstrip your efforts and the colony will get bigger instead of smaller. Once the majority of the cats are spayed and neutered, the colony will continue to shrink and the cats will roam and fight less, leading to happier, healthier cats. There are ample studies on the effectiveness of this approach with titles like “Florida County Achieves 51% Decrease in Shelter Intake of Cats With Nonlethal Solu-

Keri Roberts, Director of Operations, and Phoebe Wolfman, Manager of Owned Animals, check cats prior to surgery. WCHS fixed and vaccinated 29 cats from a colony on the Putney Road in Brattleboro.

Tiffany Palmer, Kennel Technician, vaccinates cats and cleans their ears before they wake up from surgery.

tions” and “Bay Area Colony of 175 Reduced to One Through Trap-Neuter-Return”. Visit Alleycat.org for detailed information on TNR. The approach is more humane, saves non-profit and government funds and doesn’t wear down staff with endless euthanasia. Managing colonies and keeping them small protects wildlife, including our beloved song birds.

Like many animal issues, cats are not really the problem. Humans are. We domesticated cats and we need to take more responsibility for our feline friends. Get your cat fixed and microchipped. Your local AWO probably offers a low-cost option. Brightly colored break-away collars with bells lets your neighbors know your cat is owned and keeps them out of your local shelter. Take a sharpie and write your phone number on the collar. You can purchase a pack of 14 collars for $14 and be ready when Fluffy comes home without her collar. Check out Bird-Be-Safe which goes over a break-away collar and reduces predation by 87%. Better yet, keep your cat inside or build a “catio” so they can enjoy watching wildlife safely. Working together we can make the world a safer place for all animals.