I have been working with feral cats for about 15 years. I have a colony that I tend to. It has ranged in size from ten to twenty-five cats, with the average being seventeen cats. I have had a few great success stories, where the cat has found a home and lived happily ever after. Unfortunately, many more stories have not so happy endings. I call the colony, Forlorn Ferals. I built a web site for them, in order to help other feral cats and the humans that care about them.
The U.S. currently has a population of about sixty to one-hundred million feral cats and the shelters and animal control facilities are killing approximately six million domestic cats each year. A feral female is capable of producing twenty-four to thirty kittens a year. These three facts add up to a very large over population problem. Some communities have imposed strict laws covering licensing and breeding of all pets. Some communities have done mass euthanasia, just find that in a short period, they have the same problem again.
If you are feeding feral cats and are not altering them, you aren't really doing very much to help them. It sounds harsh, but it's the truth. Unless you are able to commit to feeding a ever increasing number of cats for as long as they live, all your doing is increasing the problem.
Many a good hearted person has started to feed a few feral/stray cats. Only to find in the not to distant future they have a major problem on their hands and do not know what to do about it. Five or six cats can easily turn into twenty or more cats in a years time. Feeding twenty cats is four times as expensive as feeding five cats. This same good hearted person may all of a sudden find they have to move to a different city. So now what happens to the cats they have been feeding? These cats have come to rely on this person for food. Their hunting skills are now out of tune or non existant.
If this good hearted person had made contact with a local rescue group, they may have learned about TNR and been aided in having these cats spayed and neutered. They may have also found someone to take over the feeding of the cats when they had to move. |
