There’s some good news for feral cats in St. George, Utah.

The St. George City Council has earmarked $3,200 in its 2009-2010 budget to go to a local trap/neuter/return program.

The program, run by a local woman named Kris Neal with help from Best Friends’ Four Directions Community Cat Program and the No More Homeless Pets in Utah Feral Fix Program, humanely traps feral cats and takes them to local veterinarians and the Best Friends clinic where they’re spayed or neutered, vaccinated and then returned to their colonies.

The last place a feral cat, or a shy family cat for that matter, wants to end up is in a shelter. While 30 percent to 40 percent of dogs who enter shelters are returned to their owners, only two percent of cats ever find their way home again. Many cats entering shelters are so traumatized that they’re quickly deemed unsocialized and killed. So, the first step is to keep cats from ever ending up in a shelter in the first place. That’s what the St. George program aims to do.

The city-run St. George Animal Shelter has agreed to refer all its feral cat nuisance calls to Neal, who will contact the people making the complaints and tell them about TNR and the resources that are available to help them. Nuisances like spraying and late-night mating calls are alleviated by spaying and neutering the cats.
 
“My goal is to make people aware there is an alternative to trapping and killing cats and letting them know there are funds available from the city,” Neal says.

History has shown that trapping and euthanizing free-roaming cats just doesn’t work. Other unaltered cats will simply move into the area, bringing all their nuisances with them. Not only does spaying and neutering take care of the nuisances, it also keeps the number of feral cats from growing.

If the program works like similar programs in other communities, the shelter will see its cat intake and euthanasia numbers come down.

“We wanted to take this next step and get the city to see this is having a positive impact on its euthanasia rates and the number of cats coming into the St. George shelter,” says Shelly Kotter, campaign specialist for Focus on Felines, one of four Best Friends campaigns aimed at reaching the goal of No More Homeless Pets.

Programs that work

In 2004, No More Homeless Pets in Utah partnered with a shelter in West Valley City, Utah, to implement a comprehensive TNR program. The shelter provides NMHP in Utah with locations of neighborhoods where there are complaints are about feral cats. NMHP in Utah goes into those neighborhoods to mediate between feral cat caregivers and angry neighbors and offers is services to help caregivers trap, neuter and vaccinate cats, and return them to their areas.

The program is proving to be a success. By 2007, the shelter’s cat intake decreased 35 percent and its euthanasia rate decreased by 40 percent, says Holly Sizemore, executive director of NMHP in Utah. And there was no increase in the shelter’s calls for service or in the number of cat bites. Neighbors’ complaints about things like spraying and noisy mating calls are alleviated by spaying and neutering the cats. Other nuisances are resolved as well. For instance, if someone is complaining about cats using their garden for a cat box, NMHP in Utah might help the person lay some river rock in the garden or give them harmless deterrents like motion-activated sprinklers at little or no cost.

One of the programs Best Friends helps support is Feral Freedom, a program of First Coast No More Homeless Pets in Jacksonville, Florida. Instead of taking feral cats – now called “community cats” – to shelters, Jacksonville Animal Care and Control and the Jacksonville Humane Society turn them over to Feral Freedom where they’re spayed or neutered, vaccinated, microchipped and returned to their colonies. In the first 10 months of the program alone, almost 4,000 cats were spayed and neutered and returned to their colonies. The community’s save rate increased from 27 percent to 51 percent.

Feral Freedom is eliminating the killing of free-roaming cats in the community, easing the burden on shelters, reducing the number of homeless cats, resolving neighborhood complaints and saving taxpayer dollars. The hope is that more communities across the nation will adopt programs like Feral Freedom.

The way Neal sees it, everyone needs to come together to help free-roaming cats and their human neighbors live in harmony.

“Feral cats are a product of our society’s irresponsibility and we have a responsibility to them other than to kill them,” Neal says.

For More Information
Read more about Best Friends’ Focus on Felines campaign.


Best Friends Cat Food Drive
Best Friends’ Four Directions Community Cat Program is looking for donations of food to help in feeding some 3,500 feral cats in southern Utah and Arizona. Those who would like to help are asked to purchase gift cards from local stores designating the program as the recipient. For more information about the program, e-mail Shelly Kotter at shellyk@bestfriends.org or Shannon Riddle at shannonr@bestfriends.org.

Volunteers needed
Best Friends and Kris Neal are looking for volunteers to help with the TNR program in St. George. Those interested can e-mail Shannon Riddle at shannonr@bestfriends.org or Neal at onemorechance@infowest.com.
 

Main photo by Troy Snow

Photos in story by Molly Wald