funkychunkymonkey
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 28, 2009
My grandma got a staph infection from her fully vacinated indoor cat. She ignored it and ended up going to the er EVERY 4 hours for iv antibotics.
The best, and most humane, way to cull a colony of TRULY feral cats is trap-neuter-return. You trap only the males (females are released immediately, without handling), have them neutered and then release them back WHERE YOU FOUND THEM, again, without undue handling. You take them in the morning, or the night before, and they're ready to be released that evening, with zero recovery time. Many rescues and clinics will do it for as little as $10-$20/cat. The colony will then die out very quickly. You can get rid of a 50-cat colony in less than six months, simply by neutering the males. The life expectancy of these cats is extremely short.
Trapping these cats and taking them to animal control will ultimately just lead to them being immediately put down, as no organization will even attempt to re-home a feral cat, when there are millions of non-feral cats needing homes.
For real information, check out reputable local rescues or start with this ASPCA FAQ on feral cats: http://www.aspca.org/adoption/feral-cats-faq.aspx, or this step-by-step guide to helping feral cats from the respected Alley Cat Allies: http://www.alleycat.org/document.doc?id=461.
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Depends on the colony -- we've had a 10-cat feral colony living in our neighborhood for going on seven years. All cats (male & female) have been spayed & neutered and have a food source that is actually sponsored by the HOA. Same cats have been around for over 6 years. Everyone knows them, and the cats are so smart I've seen them look both ways before they cross the street. One possible outcome of TNR is that you can "get rid of a 50-cat colony in less than six months", but it's also possible for the cats to live on happily for quite some time. On the plus side, our neighborhood has no snakes, mice, possums or other "wildlife", and no other ferals dare enter!
Not true. While it is rare to find a shelter or rescue that will put time into trying to socialize ferals, those groups are out there. The shelter I work with will rehabilitate and try to socialize feral cats if they think the cat is "feral" only because it was abandonded. They do personality checks on every cat and kitten that comes in, and a large number go out to foster for socialization. Two of my rescue cats started off as "ferals". I raised one from a kitten (foster-to-own kind of thing) and adopted the other one as a 2YO cat. How do I know it used to be feral? It had a tipped ear, indicating that it had been trapped, spayed and released at some point before it ended up in the shelter. It's not an automatic that ferals will be put down, but you do have to do your research if you want them to have a chance.
Again ... careful how you generalize. You'd be surprised at the number of TNR people who also plan vacations (or work) at Disney. WDW property itself has a huge managed feral cat community.