We have made feeble attempts in the past to keep up with blogs, adoption lists, wikis, tweets, and all the other things that "wired" people do in an attempt to get the word out about feline matters big and small. Now that Best Friends has offered us this space, we will attempt to bring them all together in one spot--a sort of "ittyCorner Central."
The problems in Central New York are huge, but so is the number of caring, compassionate people. When we started in 1992, there were half a dozen people rescuing cats that we knew of. Cat rescue had more to do with competition than cooperation. There wasn't a lot of information available, and American shelters were killing 15 million animals a year.
Now, 16 years later, the shelter killing has fallen to 4 million, and there are dozens of grassroots rescue organizations and caring individuals involved in taking cats off the streets, getting them spayed/neutered and placing them in homes. Trap-Neuter-Return is the accepted protocol for feral cats by knowledgeable people in many parts of the country, including some municipalities. Syracuse has it's first-ever low-cost spay/neuter clinic.
But there is still an awful lot of work to do. Our shelters are "no-kill," or "low-kill," or whatever term we choose to use; but the flip side is that they are always full (because they don't euthanize animals to make room for more) and most people who call are referred elsewhere or turned away. The "elsewhere" is to the rescuers, most of whom are working out of their own homes and their own pockets, and don't have room either. So cats are left on the streets, and many are unaltered, contributing to the huge feral cat problem. TNR or Trap-Neuter-return programs are very successful for dealing with feral and free-roaming cat populations, but people have a hard time leaving behind the beliefs they grew up with, such as "don't feed stray cats," or the idea that trapping and destroying feral cats en masse will decrease complaints. The Town of Salina has instituted such a trap and kill program, where cats are even prohibbited from "urinating or defecating on any but the owner's property." It's a lose-lose-lose-lose situation for the towns, the shelters, the rescuers, and most of all, the cats.
We CAN solve this problem if we work together. I would like this blog to be, among other things, a place to share ideas about what to do or what to do better. Your comments and ideas are always welcome. If you would rather e-mail me privately than put your ideas into a public space, you can reach me at catresq@twcny.rr.com.