The Austin area now has a terrific new resource to help reduce animal overpopulation, and the TNR (trap, neuter, release) community is purring with pleasure.
By Jennifer Hayes, Best Friends NetworkThe Austin Humane Society (AHS) recently opened a free spay/neuter clinic for feral cats. Not only does it service Travis County, but allows trappers from surrounding counties such as Williamson and Hays to bring in their cats for sterilization. Ferals are cats, which have not received socialization with humans, and are therefore wild animals. Without any population control their numbers increase quickly, and contribute significantly to the current animal overpopulation issue.
This new project is largely possible due to help from two major grants. The ASPCA has made a one-time $45,000 donation to help fund the clinic in its first year, as part of its Mission Orange campaign. Additionally, PetSmart has pledged $96,500 for the year 2007, with additional funds expected over the next two years. According to the AHS Director of Development, Eva Owens, “Austin is ready to be a good investment.” The leaders of Austin’s major animal welfare organizations, both private and municipal, work well together and have collaboratively determined feral cats to be one of the area’s major concerns. Currently, feral cats are the greatest number of animals euthanized in Austin, and it is believed that this program will have a great impact in reducing that number.
Every Friday morning, beginning at 6:30 AM, colony managers and trappers start to bring in their prior night’s catches. Each feral cat is not only fixed free of charge (with no voucher needed), but also receives a brief medical exam, ear tipping, a rabies vaccination and certificate, flea control, a 24-hour pain injection, an Ivermectin injection for parasite control, a penicillin injection, a brief medical history, and post-operative care instructions. Trappers are offered additional optional services, such as combo testing for FIV/FeLV, additional vaccinations, and additional pain medication for a small fee.
After only a month, this free spay/neuter clinic has proven to be a great success. However, much of this impact is due to the TNR community’s involvement, as they are the people doing the actual trapping, post-surgical care, and transportation. There are those who are using this free clinic to help animals in their own managed feral colonies. Others volunteer to trap for individuals in need, whose population of stray animals spirals out of control, after only a few litters are born. Thanks to this new program, there also a group of people who were previously unaware of the feral problem, that have now begun a mission to fix these wild cats. Heather Rowley, is such a new trapper, and said she was “not sure what to do until I heard about the program.” She is now working on a colony of about 40 cats, where already two litters have been born this spring. Heather hopes to catch the kittens soon for socialization and adoption, as well as catch and spay the mother cats to prevent further litters. Says Rowley, “It’s challenging, but rewarding.”
Another participant, Julia Hilder, has been doing TNR for four years on behalf of residents of East Austin. “There are thousands of cats who will benefit from this program and people will too. It’s not just for cats. And now is a critical time to start this program, [there are] so many in heat and pregnant cats, it’s the perfect time to be up and running.” Many of the people that the trappers help are so grateful for the assistance, and in addition to countless meals, Julia has even been given hand sewn custom covers for her live traps. The trappers themselves are rewarded when revisiting colonies that have been previously sterilized to find that there have been no additional litters of kittens in years.
As the trappers bring the cats in, the AHS staff is very careful to label traps, paperwork, carriers and once sedated, even the cats themselves. Each trapper’s animals and equipment are also color coded, to prevent any confusion when picking the colonies up in the afternoon. The covered traps are then transported to the surgical suite, where an assembly line process begins; cats are anesthesitized, scanned for microchips, prepared for surgery, ear tipped, fastened to the table, spayed or neutered, given injections, and watched over in recovery. A few hours after a particular colony is complete, the trapper is phoned to pick them up. This happens every Friday, for approximately 40-50 cats per week, dependent upon the weather. After pickup, the trappers maintain the cats for approximately 1-4 days, to allow the anesthesia to work out of their systems and for their incisions to begin healing. The cats are then re-released in the area they were initially captured, in order to live out their lives, but no longer adding to the overpopulation problem.
The Austin Humane Society has lofty sterilization goals for this program; 1,500 cats in 2007 and 5,000 in both 2008 and 2009. Leticia Stivers, Feral Cat Coordinator, hopes that word of this free resource spreads among individual neighborhoods and that people take the initiative to fix feral cats while there may only be a few animals and it is cost and labor effective, before the problem grows. Currently, the AHS is working with members of one Austin neighborhood association, which has allocated a portion of their membership fees to fund additional vaccinations and potential further medical care.
While the grant money has paid for the initial clinic setup and operational costs, focus is now needed on support directly from the public. First and foremost, volunteer help is needed to capture cats. Without TNR people bringing in the animals for sterilization, the clinic will cease. The Austin Humane Society encourages local businesses to impact their own community by providing financial assistance to spay and neuter feral cats on their property and allow colonies to be managed. This has already proven to be a success with IBM in Austin, and the Austin Humane Society would be willing to dedicate an entire clinic to an individual colony for such partnerships. Volunteers are welcome to help at the clinics; assistance is needed at intake and recovery. As the program grows, fundraising assistance will be necessary and the AHS would like to create a newsletter specific to their feral program. Donations of supplies, particularly Tru-Catch live traps, are extremely helpful. In fact, the program already has 30 live traps for loan, which were all donated by one of the local trappers. The clinic could also use recovery crates, both large and small, to allow for transport and maintenance until the cats are released back in the colony. Towels are also needed to cover the live traps and carriers, which reduces the stress on the cats in this frightening environment.
“AHS is committed to lead efforts in Austin to address this critical and life-threatening issue by launching our TNR program, the largest feral cat sterilization program in Central Texas,” says Frances Jonon, AHS Executive Director. In an effort to recruit additional program contributors, the AHS will soon begin training classes, in order to teach people about TNR and trapping methods. For now, word of this new and free resource continues to spread, and each additional feral cat fixed means fewer unnecessary euthanizations will occur down the road.
For more information about this program, to make an appointment to bring cats to an upcoming clinic, or to make a donation, please contact the Feral Cat Program Coordinator, Leticia Stivers:
e-mail: lstivers@austinhumanesociety.org
Phone: 512-646-PETS (7387) ext. 245
Austin Humane Society
124 West Anderson Lane
Austin, TX 78752
Phone: 512-646-PETS (7387)
http://www.austinhumanesociety.org/For additional information on Austin feral cats:
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Austin Feral Cats •
University of Texas Feral Cat Coalition •
Shadow Cats •
Spay Austin: Feral Cats Photo credit: taken by Jennifer Hayes
Lead photo: Dr. Katie Luke performing a spay surgery on one of the 36 ferals brought in to that day’s clinic
Top photo: Feral cat in live trop at intake
Middle photo: Dr. Katie Luke performing another spay
Bottom photo: Kerri Luker, watching over three cats in recovery, following spay surgeries
A special thanks to the entire staff of the Austin Humane Society, for their generous time and assistance with this story.