I'm hoping that someone who has more experience of caring for feral cat colonies than I do can help me understand what is happening here.
There is a small colony of feral cats in my old neighbourhood. I used to feed them daily when I lived there and they have all been TNR'd, with the exception of a few roaming tom cats who come by once a week or so. The core group of around 9 cats are fed a couple of times a day by three different families that live in the area and one of the women who feeds them lets them sleep in her garage.
I go down maybe twice a week to visit and give them a little extra food.
About two weeks ago over a three day period four cats went missing. A 3 year old female and an 18 month old female one night, a four year old male the following night and a 7+ year old female two nights after that. Apparently they were there in the evening but gone the next morning and haven't been seen since.
No one heard anything (the garage they sleep in is directly below a bedroom) and no cats were found knocked over on the road. (City hall was called several times to check)
These cats are quite wild and won't let anyone touch them, so it's unlikely that anyone could have picked them up.
Is it common for cats to disappear like that? What can have happened to them? Several cats went missing over the four year period that I lived there. A few were hit by cars but we always knew about that because we either found them on the road or called City Hall and heard that a dead cat had been removed from the street.
Thanks for reading and for any suggestions.
There is a small colony of feral cats in my old neighbourhood. I used to feed them daily when I lived there and they have all been TNR'd, with the exception of a few roaming tom cats who come by once a week or so. The core group of around 9 cats are fed a couple of times a day by three different families that live in the area and one of the women who feeds them lets them sleep in her garage.
I go down maybe twice a week to visit and give them a little extra food.
About two weeks ago over a three day period four cats went missing. A 3 year old female and an 18 month old female one night, a four year old male the following night and a 7+ year old female two nights after that. Apparently they were there in the evening but gone the next morning and haven't been seen since.
No one heard anything (the garage they sleep in is directly below a bedroom) and no cats were found knocked over on the road. (City hall was called several times to check)
These cats are quite wild and won't let anyone touch them, so it's unlikely that anyone could have picked them up.
Is it common for cats to disappear like that? What can have happened to them? Several cats went missing over the four year period that I lived there. A few were hit by cars but we always knew about that because we either found them on the road or called City Hall and heard that a dead cat had been removed from the street.
Thanks for reading and for any suggestions.