More than half of the estimated 700 million cats in the world are strays...or feral. They live in hiding, avoid human contact, and often become aggressive predators, devastating wildlife. In the United States, feral cats kill one to four billion birds and six to 22 billion mammals annually.
If you come upon one or more strays in your area, please do one of the following:
1-Check for a collar and ID and contact the owner.
2-Call a local shelter to report the cat's location.
3-Provide the stray with food and water.
The Humane Society notes that the idea that stray cats are at great risk for suffering and untimely death is long-standing. Free-roaming cats do risk higher exposure to dangers such as predators, poisons, infectious and parasitic agents, weather extremes and cruel human acts. While the physical dangers to free-roaming cats are not to be ignored, a growing body of evidence suggests they are generally fit and healthy, with only a fraction of a percent going into trap-neuter-release clinics (TNR) requiring euthanasia to end suffering.
The overall health of feral cats improves after being sterilized, vaccinated and returned as they have greater immunity against a host of other diseases and parasites; also, they fight less and stay closer to home, decreasing risk of injury or of being hit by a car. Sterilized cats are also less likely to transmit feline diseases that are largely spread through mating behavior and mating-related fighting. While some believe cats living outdoors are more susceptible to common feline diseases, such as feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) or feline leukemia virus (FeLV), these viruses occur at the same rate as in the tame, home pet cat population.
The greatest risk is to kittens, as only 25% of cats born outdoors survive past 6 months of age. Recent population modeling shows that high-intensity TNR not only reduces overall populations of free-roaming cats more effectively than other management tactics, but also results in significantly fewer kittens dying—31 times fewer than not implementing any community cat management program. This is one reason why TNR should be implemented more broadly across the country.
Why can’t animal shelters rescue all the community cats?
Most community cats don’t need rescuing; they have an outdoor home and people who care for them. Bringing these healthy community cats in leads to shelter overcrowding, which leads to cats getting sick, which leads to higher euthanasia rates. No one wants that. Shelters and rescue groups help by participating in programs to get these cats spayed or neutered and vaccinated and to help support the people in the community who care for them.
Ideally, kittens, once weaned, can be placed in adoption programs. Kittens need to be exposed to humans by about 9 weeks of age in order to prevent a fear of humans. Many community cat programs include foster homes to socialize kittens born outdoors so they can be adopted into homes. Volunteering to be a foster home is one way you can be part of the solution.
If you can't adopt, foster. If you can't foster, volunteer at a shelter. If you can't volunteer, donate. If you can't donate, spread the word to help cats.
Thanks to Paul DeCeglie for submitting this very timely article!
