What
Are The Advantages of TNR?
•
Decrease population and eventual elimination of homeless cats by
preventing new litters.
• Decrease complaints about homeless cats by eliminating
behavior that some people find bothersome, such as territorial
spraying, fighting, & mating.
• Improve health of the existing homeless cat population.
• Decrease shelter intake (and killing) of ferals, thereby
freeing shelter/rescue space & funds.
Are
Feral Cats Sickly?
A
report published from the University of Florida on more than 1,800
feral cats demonstrated only 4% to be infected with feline leukemia
virus or feline immunodeficiency virus, which is similar to that found
in pet cats. [See "Statement from Dr. Julie Levy, read at the hearing
of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) on the proposed
policy to eradicate feral cats in Florida." May 30, 2003. Available at
http://www.bestfriends.org/nmhp/ferals26-02.htm. Accessed November 23,
2003.]
Rabies
is not commonly found within feral cat colonies. Where humans are
concerned, the danger of rabies is relatively slight. During 2001, 49
states and Puerto Rico reported only 1 case of rabies in a human,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Canada did
not report any cases of rabies in human beings during 2001. [See
"Rabies Control And Feral Cats In The US," Alley Cat Allies. Available
at http://www.alleycat.org/pdf/rabies.pdf. Accessed September 29, 2003.
"Public Veterinary Medicine: Public Health - Rabies surveillance in the
United States during 2001," John W. Krebs, MS; Heather R. Noll, MPH;
Charles E. Rupprecht, VMD, PhD; James E. Childs, ScD.]
Why
Doesn't Trap & Kill Work?
Traditional,
municipality-run attempts to trap and kill cats have historically
resulted in greater numbers of stray animals than have well planned
programs to trap, neuter and return cats, the TNR program. TNR, in
conjunction with public education, stabilizes numbers and facilitates
the eventual elimination of colonies of homeless cats. The
trap-and-kill method is usually implemented in spurts. Cats will be
trapped for a few weeks and then the area is abandoned. Cats who
escaped the traps remain. Moreover, people continue to abandon cats and
allow unneutered cats to roam. Without public education, and without a
permanent caregiver to monitor the area, the breeding cycle quickly
starts up again. Trap-and-kill has been used for decades and there is
still a feral cat overpopulation problem. It is unethical and does not
work.
Why
Are Feral Cats Eartipped?
Eartipping
identifies feral cats that have been sterilized and vaccinated.
Eartipping is completely safe and it is painless because the cat is
under general anesthetic when the procedure is performed. Eartipping
provides immediate visual identification which alerts animal control
that a cat is part of a managed colony. It also helps colony caretakers
track which cats have been trapped and vetted, and identify newcomers
who have not.
A
Female Cat Had Kittens Outside. What Should I Do?
You
should trap and sterilize the whole family. How you proceed depends on
the age of the kittens.
Don't
trap a mother who is nursing her kittens unless you catch the kittens
too. Tiny kittens cannot survive away from their mothers for long.
If
the kittens are newly weaned (usually four to six weeks), ask if your
veterinarian can perform surgery and return the mother within 48 hours.
Even though eating solid food, very young kittens are unlikely to
survive without their mother for body heat and protection. (If your vet
cannot meet this time frame, wait until the kittens are older to trap
the queen.)
Try
to trap the kittens no later than eight to ten weeks of age. The sooner
they have human contact, the easier it will be to socialize them.
At
twelve weeks and older, kittens can be sterilized, vaccinated, and
returned to the location where they were living outside. Socializing
feral kittens after 12 weeks of age becomes much more difficult and
less likely to succeed.
How Does My
Township Enroll With Your Program? (Print
This)
Thank
you so much for
inquiring about our program! BCCI is run by
volunteers . . . we all have regular full time jobs and we handle our
never-ending BCCI duties in our not-so-spare time. We are inundated
with requests for help and information. In addition, we rely solely on
donations and grants for funding, so much of our time is spent raising
money. Somehow our small group is able to make major accomplishments,
probably because the wonderful people who we work with never stop
giving!
The Burlington County
Feral Cat
Initiative (BCCI) is a TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) program that is
endorsed by the Burlington County Health Department and the Board of
Chosen Freeholders. The Health Department and the Freeholders support
our program for various reasons. The main reason being public safety,
since BCCI provides rabies vaccination free of charge to stray/feral
cats whose caregivers enroll in our program, and we educate the public
on the importance of rabies vaccinations and spaying and neutering. In
addition to the public safety factor, townships want our program
implemented because our program saves taxes. To date, our
program
is implemented in Beverly City, Lumberton, Shamong, Southampton,
Tabernacle and Woodland Townships and many other Burlington County
towns are on our waiting list – waiting for funding.
In
order for residents of a township to enroll in our program, first
the township must implement our feral-friendly model ordinance. After
that, we offer a free TNR seminar to train caregivers how to properly
trap and care for their colonies, as all caregivers must be TNR
Certified before they can receive our free services. The caregivers
must also sign our Caregiver Agreement and fully abide by the terms and
conditions of the agreement.
Through our
program, all of the cats of a colony are trapped, after which the cats
are examined by a veterinarian, are spayed/neutered, receive
rabies/distemper vaccinations, and are ear-tipped and id-micro chipped
for identification purposes FREE OF CHARGE. Feral
cats managed
through BCCI will no longer reproduce and will no longer represent a
risk of transmitting rabies or other diseases to humans.
Once the cats are
treated
through our program, nuisance complaints
significantly decrease, as there is no more fighting over females or
mating behavior. Microchips allow the identification of each individual
cat and, if picked up by animal control, the cat’s medical
(surgical
and vaccination) history is immediately available. Therefore, the
TNR-treated cat can be quickly reclaimed by its caregiver, which
minimizes expenditure of resources by animal control agencies (tax
dollars).
We also work in
conjunction
with wildlife advocates. Currently, our organization is operating a
pilot program on the practice of TNR in wild-life sensitive habitats,
following protocol developed by the New Jersey Feral Cat &
Wildlife
Coalition. Other members of the coalition include, the Humane Society
of the U.S., New Jersey Audubon Society, New Jersey Division of Fish
& Wildlife, Neighborhood Cats, Alley Cat Allies, New Jersey
Animal
Rights Alliance, In Defense of Animals, Animal Legal Defense Fund, New
Jersey State Health Department, the New Jersey Office of Animal Welfare
and the Burlington County Animal Shelter.
As stated previously, we
have many towns on our waiting list. The only
deterrent to allowing these towns into our program is funding. In
short, the towns must remain on our waiting list until we are able to
raise enough funds to support the towns currently enrolled, with a
surplus to add more towns.
However,
Lumberton Township, our most recent admission, resulted when a
Lumberton resident approached her township officials with an offer they
could not refuse . . . she entered into an agreement with the officials
that if they passed the feral-friendly model ordinance and paid $2,500,
she would raise the balance of the funds needed to get BCCI’s
program
implemented. She organized various fund raisers and raised the money
within a few months! We feel that this will be the wave of the future,
and will be the quickest route for interested people to have their
towns admitted into our program.
BCCI is
a 501(c)3 non-profit organization and all fund raising must be done
under our guidelines, but we also help with the fund raising and
provide “how to” suggestions to guarantee good
results. Please contact
us if you are interested in more details.
