How to get involved

Having recently rescued a feral kitten and taking her in to live with me... my entire mentality towards ferals has been changed.

My area has tons of ferals. I had previously thought that once a feral, always a feral, and that they would never be able to adapt to being a housecat.

I have tried on many occasions to lure the ferals in out of curiosity, but never with any success. They were always too scared to come near me and would look at me for a while (a few minutes) and then run away.

As I type, the little furball that got me rethinking the situation is in my lap relaxing and sounding like a little motor (purring I assume?)

I won't be living in this area much longer, and will be moving out of state permanently in a few months, however before I leave, I'd like to get the ball rolling on a program to cover my area's feral situation.

There are plenty of groups that engage in TNR and adoption of ferals around town, but none cover my area unfortunately.

How do I go about getting something started, perhaps amongst my neighborhood? There must be a colony around here somewhere, but I don't know where.

Welcome to TCS!! Have you tried calling AlleyCat Allies? You could also call those other local TNR groups and see if they can recommend some veterinarians in your area to call.There are some vets out there who take a certain number of "charity" cases and they often know others like you who help out, one cat at a time. Maybe you could put up an ad on the bulletin boards at the nearby feedstores & vet offices
How exciting to set up a cat rescue team We have a TCS member here, CarWashCats, who has done marvelous accomplishments - perhaps you can PM her.
Sending mega TCS prayers & vibes that your endeavors go well
BTW - your screenname caught my attention - are you a policeman or an attorney? My DH is a contract public defender, but due to health concerns, is trying to segway into more civil practice (yuck!) and I work as the primary secretary, bookkeeper, maintenance person in our office

First off, I wanted to say that I've been following your thread and I really respect you for taking that adorable kitten in. I wish more people had your courage and compassion.

I second the previous poster's advice that Alley Cat Allies is the place to start for advice about TNR. Their website is http://www.alleycat.org and you'll find all kinds of great info there.

I'd also strongly encourage you to get some of neighbors involved in your TNR effort. Their involvement is critical not only in trapping the cats, but in caring for them longterm, especially if you're moving. Alley Cat Allies offers some great tips about educating people regarding TNR. Involving the neighbors is also essential if finances are an issue. They may be willing to contribute to getting the cats fixed, vaccinated, etc... Even if no groups in your area are active in TNR, I'd suggest contacting area shelters/rescues to see if they offer free or low-cost spay/neuter or might be able to foster and place tame cats/kittens for adoption.

I've been involved in TNR locally for 2 1/2 years and couldn't have helped the cats without the neighbor's cooperation (and encouragement from TCS, of course). Feel free to PM me if there's anything I can do to help. Good luck! You're doing a wonderful thing!

Originally Posted by eilcon

I'd also strongly encourage you to get some of neighbors involved in your TNR effort. Their involvement is critical not only in trapping the cats, but in caring for them longterm,

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Yes. There is at least one aspect more talking for getting several of the neighours into the cooperation:
Many people are more or less hostile to ferals. They perhaps dont do much while everything is quiet. But when it is becoming known TNR is coming, and thus a colony is officially created, they get awakened and go into actions.
OR they move against the ferals spontaneously. Either via the City Council, or themselves killing off the ferals. Shooting them or poisoning. Such things happens.
There can be much hostile feelings!

In all such cases it helps very much if it is a group doing the TNR (+ some adopting). Talking with the neighborhood, arguing it is quite oppsite: most of the "problems" will disappear as soon the TNR is working.
The City animal control often do calm down if they get proof the problems are worked with, that there is a established working TNR team. They can even help some! As their work is not to kill, but solve the problems.


Good luck!

Alley Cats Allies is a good place to start. But I do have to ask, how much research have you done concerning local groups doing TNR? What I have found is that a lot of the smaller rescue groups will sponsor TNR, and in particular, no kill shelters / rescue groups.

The best way to find everyone operating in your area: go to petfinder.com and do a search for available cats within 100 miles of your zipcode. The adoptable cats will come up and you can click on the rescue group sponsoring the cat and read more about them. A local group by me would travel about 50 miles to help with TNR. They were small, not in the phone book, and could only be found by reference or petfinder.

I have researched the local groups and found some people working on feral populations in the area. Unfortunately, all of their efforts are focused on colonies that are not related to the feral population in my neighborhood.

The feral issue in my neighborhood started less than 5 years ago when some of us starting seeing a couple of cats roaming. When I expressed my desire to do something about it, I was countered with the argument that if they get taken to the humane society, they will be killed. At the time I accepted that as a valid response but warned of what would I knew (even with my limited knowledge of cats) would happen.

Within a few years, those cats obviously reproduced, and we now have a population of easily over 100 roaming.

About a year ago, my brother ran over one of them.

I am right now setting up low-power FM and AM stations (within FCC Part 15 guidelines) that will repeat a prerecorded message about the situation and my desire to get an effort underway to deal with it in a manner that is best both for the animals and for the neighbors.

I will also try to distribute flyers.

On my own time I will go around looking and see if I can get an idea of where the colony is based.

I also have emailed the local groups to see if they would be willing to help, but have not yet received a response.