TNR

When Susan, the woman who runs the rescue for which I volunteer, asked if I wanted to go along on a TNR (Trap-Neuter-Release) this past weekend, I said sure.  It was about time I did some of the dirty work, I figured.

TNR is done in areas where there are large numbers of feral cats.  Feral cats are those who are born to stray or feral mothers; having never had contact with people, they are not (generally) friendly and are, for the most part, unadoptable.  If you get feral kittens young enough, they can be socialized.  Many shelters will not take ferals over eight weeks of age; the oldest I have successfully socialized were twelve weeks old when they came into human contact.  My two feral fosters, Bindi and Callie, came into rescue care at sixteen weeks old; while Bindi is now "pettable", after a year of work, Callie is still not touchable.  Bindi may become friendly enough to be adopted at some point; Callie probably never will.  Our rescue will continue to care for both of them, regardless.  Probably at my house. Ha.

Not all stray cats are ferals.  Stray cats are those who belonged in a home at one point and then became homeless.  Some strays turn feral, i.e., wild, but some strays remain friendly toward people.

When our group does a TNR, determination is made at time of capture whether the cats are stray-friendly or ferals.  Stray-friendlys are put into foster care to determine if they are adoptable; ferals are neutered and released.

Some people say that's cruel; that all the cats should be given opportunities for homes.  The truth is that the vast majority of feral cats will never adapt to life with people, any more than any other wild animal would.  We spay or neuter them, vaccinate them, address any treatable medical issues, and release them back where they were captured.

So!  Friday night it was time to get started.  Susan had previously received a call from the low-cost clinic who provides our veterinary services; there was an elderly man in our area who had been feeding neighborhood cats.  The cat population had gotten out of control, and he was not physically able to trap the cats and get them to the vet.  He was willing to pay for the clinic's services if we could get the cats there.  A paying customer!  (99% of the time, our rescue ends up paying for the spays and neuters of the TNRs.)  Susan said yes, contacted the man, and told him we'd be there on Friday.  We would trap the cats, take them to the clinic Saturday morning, and bring them back Saturday night.

We pulled up to the house with the back of Susan's truck full of live traps, and, well ... it was the kind of house the little kids skip on Halloween.  Set on a heavily wooded corner lot, the house was barely visible from the street.  As we got closer, we could see that the porches were filled with ... stuff, and cats scattered in all directions.

The man, a retired IBM-er, came out, and I'll tell you what, I'll bet you a million bucks he was an engineer, because the dude. was. clueless.

He had set out a trap himself, but had neglected to bait it.  He couldn't figure out why he hadn't caught anything.  He told us confidently that we didn't have to bother trapping the younger cats, "because they can't get pregnant until they're two years old."  And the rabbit story ... oh, remind me to tell you about the rabbit story sometime.

ANYhow.  Dude was clueless, but he was trying to do what he thought was the right thing by feeding the cats (colony feeding is about as controversial as TNR), and he was willing to pay to get them spayed and neutered, so we were all in.  We had to go around to the back of the house where he was feeding them to set the traps, and trying to lug those heavy, clumsy traps through the undergrowth around the house ... well, it wasn't easy.  I'm STILL sore.  PLUS, as we're bushwhacking around the house, I saw first a woodchuck and then a damn SKUNK go skittering away, so, well ... we might end up with more than just cats in those traps.

We had seven traps, and we set them all, baiting them with catnip and tuna.  We had asked the man to skip his regular evening feeding so the cats would be hungry.  We backed off and went for a little stroll to give the cats time to approach, and when we headed back, we could hear the traps going off.  Crash!  Bang! Crash!  Four of the traps had triggered.

We hurried back to the traps.  Inside were some of the angriest damn cats I've ever seen in my life.  A cornered feral is truly a frightening animal.  They were snarling and howling and thrashing and scratching and the traps were literally bouncing around the yard.  Remember the scene in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation where Grandma puts the cat in the box and Chevy Chase picks the box up and shakes it and it starts flailing around?  Yeah, like that.

"Grab a trap," Susan said.  "Let's get 'em down to the truck."

I looked down at the trap at my feet, filled with very angry wild cat.  "Ummmmmm," I said.  "How do I do this without losing a limb?"

"Grab a towel," she said.  "Put the towel on top of the cage, and down the side between you and the cat.  Grab the handle through the towel.  The cat won't be able to get his paws through far enough to get to you.  You're safe."

Gingerly (okay, MORE than gingerly), I dropped a towel over the crate, grabbed the handle, and picked it up.  And with the cat inside hissing and spitting and flailing and lurching, I headed back through the undergrowth, down to the truck.

By that time a small crowd of neighbors had gathered, wanting to know if we were taking the cats and were we taking them ALL and would the cats be coming back and oh have you got that Siamese one that Siamese one has several litters every year and do you know about that lady down the block who has all those cats and what about that long-haired tabby THAT one fights with all the other cats and

I started to get overwhelmed.  It was apparent that this neighborhood has a MAJOR problem with feral cats, but nobody was actually doing anything about it.  Other than the one gentleman who called the clinic, bringing us in.  These cats were breeding like damn rabbits all over the place, and nobody saw fit to take action other than that one man.

By this time it was almost nine, and we still had three traps left to fill.  "How late do you stay?," I asked her.  "As long as it takes," she said.  "Two, three in the morning sometimes.  But you go ahead home, and I'll see you in the morning."  I think she knew I was discouraged and about to crack.


To be continued ...