Anyone with experience with community TNR?

[2 dozen]

I rec'd permission to TNR ferals in my community with the funds from a raffle going to a nonprofit org. that performs low cost surgery. I have an apt with the community manager to ask for permission to place winter shelters. What info should I present to convince him it is a good idea? I have been doing this for 3 1/2 years, have TNR'd 160 cats, out of pocket expenses for food, gas to surgical sites, vet bills have exceeded $16,000. This year there is a $3000 allotment in the budget so I have been very lucky the manager and BOD have been supportive but I may be pushing my luck with this new request.

Any thoughts will be appreciated.

Karen

 

[ritz]

First thank you for your efforts and accomplishments--wow, that's a lot of cats/kittens you saved.
I lived in a condo complex, surrounded by apartment complexes and single family dwellings, all with a high rate of evictions/foreclosures. People moved out and left their unfixed cats behind. I TNRd 35 cats who hung around my building in two years.
The last year I was there the property manager decided to get local animal control involved; they were unsuccessful in trapping cats around the business office. And the the traps were being stolen or mutilated. So I offered to help. The property manager said he would pay for the s/n if I then removed the cats. I explained that more cats would simply take their place. English was not his first language, but he knew what I meant by the phrase "better the devil you know than the devil you don't know". Although I ended up paying for the s/n, he agreed to put up flyers informing the residents of the TNR, explaining a little about what TNR was, and (most important): if you have an indoor/outdoor cat please keep him/her indoors. Otherwise, if he/she ends up in the trap, s/he will be s/n.
I trapped around six or seven cats, one of whom was pregnant. I moved from that area two years ago, still feed the much smaller colony now, and trapped two more cats (one of whom looked sick) a few months ago. I don't advertise my presence; I'm probably technically trespassing.
During my history of TNR, I had the full support and help from the President of the Condo Association. If you can I get the support of someone similar, that may help.
Finally, Alley Cat Allies has some excellent handouts, some of which are in Spanish, explaining what TNR is and the vacuum effect.
Good luck and let us know how it goes.
PS: out of curiosity, where do you live?

 

[2 dozen]

Thanks for your response, Ritz and kudos to you for your efforts on behalf of the strays/ferals .

I live in the NE part of Pa in the Pocono Mts ( along the Delaware river across from NY, not the honeymoon hotel area)

When I first wrote my proposal for the program, most of my info was from Alley Cat Allies. I printed up pamphlets through Vistaprint explaining what a feral cat is, the benefits of TNR, the vacuum effect, the places that TNR is the official policy, like Philadelphia, Wash DC, Atlantic City,etc.

As I said, I am very fortunate to have community support, they allow me to have a box in the office for cat food donations that once in a rare while someone will donate something. Since there is now actually a budgeted item of $3000 for the program I asked for a meeting with the manager to discuss expectations on both sides. I would like to now start placing winter shelters near colonies. The email response from the manager to my request for a meeting included info that he has rec'd complaints from a household near a colony I have TNR'd and feed every day about cats marking their home and the ensuing smell.

I plan to ask the manager to have the people contact me so we can work on some solutions, and I think having shelters around may keep cats away from homes so that would be a selling point. Any other selling points to have the shelter idea look attractive to the powers that be are appreciated.

I will keep in mind your expression to your previous manager about the devil you know when I have my meeting which is to be scheduled sometime the end of this week.

Karen.

 

[StefanZ]

Our forumite JennyR has had recently a long thread about starting a community TNR action in a small town in France.  You can probably get some ideas and comparisons from her thread.

Good luck!

 

[catwoman707]

Educating and eye appeal are key here.

The cats unfixed and uncared for will go through trash for food, they will spray/mark, fight, howl, spread fiv and felv and the colony will continue to grow in population by reproducing, and removing them will only bring new.

I have a cat feeding route in town I go on every other night and have for the past 12 1/2 years. They are crazy healthy and the colonies are stable, not growing. In fact a few months back I had to wrangle one who got a foxtail in his throat, I know exactly how old he is because they were about 4 months old when I started caring for them, 12 years ago. The vet seriously did NOT believe it when I told him his age.

Perfect.

Some of the stops are behind businesses, like one is behind Wendy's burgers, so it took quite alot of convincing for them to accept and now support what I do.

I gave them my word that I would never leave dishes or trash behind, and the shelters are well hidden. The only thing, and they accept this because I do keep it so neat, is the summer each spot has a water dish.

 

[conikat]

Our whole town has been involved in this for several years now. But it's not entirely official and mostly locally supported as it's a very small town. However, many people get involved in these things.... We even managed to win a brand new Dog Park year before last. Of course we had to obtain the land grant for it, but we got 25,000K for this project plus a lot of freebies. Like I said, amazing town and remarkable people!