EDITORIAL:  DOES TNR WORK TO REDUCE THE NUMBER OF FERAL CATS?

By Jean Townsend, VMD

            Recently MFS President Peggy Nemoff responded to a letter from someone in The City Paper who complained that TNR simply does not work to reduce cat over-population, especially the feral cat population.  The old method was trap-and-euthanize which clearly has not worked.  Does trap-neuter-return have any impact on the cat over-population issue?

The July/August 2007 issue of Animal People, a monthly newsletter for “people who care about animals”  edited by Merritt Clifton, reported that U.S. shelter euthanasias had dropped to 3.7 million dogs and cats.  “U.S. animal shelters as of mid-2007 are killing fewer dogs and cats than at any time in at least the past 37 years,” he reports. Several factors are at work in this reduction, one of which is the popularity of internet adoptions which seem to help dogs, especially. A second factor is TNR, which helps cats. 

But the cat toll is rising again for the first time since TNR feral cat control caught on in 1991-1992, Clifton reports.  Across the U.S., the shelter toll is now 63% cats, 37% dogs – the most lopsided it has ever been, according to Clifton.  The 2006 projected total of 2.3 million cats killed in shelters represents an increase of about 300,000 from the level of the preceding several years.  But this is NOT because there are more cats at large.  Using various means of counting, Animal People estimates about six million feral cats at large in winter with about twice that many in the spring-summer “kitten season.”  This is down by more than 75% from the feral cat population of about 1990.

Data collected for the National Council on Pet Population Study indicates that the U.S. cat population has not reproduced in excess of self-replacement since approximately 1994.  The pet cat population has actually increased from just over 60 million to about 90 million due mostly to the adoption of feral cats, mostly feral kittens!

“Kitten removals from the feral population, together with neuter/return, has reduced feral cat reproduction capacity to substantially less than replacement,” Clifton states.  This is good news indeed!

At a recent SPCA-Alley Cat Allies workshop for veterinarians in Baltimore, Dr. Karla Brestle, the medical director for the National Spay/Neuter Response Team (part of the Humane Alliance in Asheville, NC), stated that since adopting the TNR approach to over-population, the local cat euthanasia rate in Asheville has dropped 65-70%. And there are many other similar reports available.

One of the aspects of cat over-population control that I have not seen addressed is WHO does the controlling.  If trap-and-euthanize is done, this is usually at the behest of someone complaining and is carried out by animal control or the complainant.  TNR, on the other hand, is usually done by a caregiver who is emotionally invested in the welfare of the cats.  Alley Cat Allies’ survey (see above) indicates that the public does not like to see stray cats euthanized, so these citizens do not set the process in motion – that call to animal control.  They may instead just feed the cats or ignore them. Either response, of course, leads to cat reproduction! But if citizens are offered a no-kill alternative (TNR), at least some of them will get involved or search out a TNR program. This means that more cats will be altered and is probably part of why TNR is more effective than trap-euthanize.  There’s more of it being done.

Another charge the letter-writer to The City Paper leveled was that these cats lead a miserable life outdoors. As a life-long cat-lover and as a veterinarian, I am inclined to help cats survive.  After all, the only thing they own is their life.  To them, it is precious.  Cats born outdoors to feral mothers don’t know there are cat beds in warm, comfortable houses.  They don’t know that some cats have their food handed to them.  They only know their own life and circumstances and, with some help from us in the form of altering and feeding, they can adapt and survive to live a normal lifespan.  Don’t we owe them that chance?