Feral Cat Program: Trap/Neuter/Return (TNR)

Trap/neuter/return (TNR) focuses on managing homeless cats in feral cat colonies. When we receive a call from a person who has been feeding feral cats on their property we contact the person to get an idea of how many cats there are, their feeding schedule and find out how much the caregiver is able to assist with our efforts to help the cats.

Trapping the Feral Cats

We then make a plan to have the cats humanely trapped by either the caregiver or one of our volunteers as they are available.  They are then taken to one of our vets or one of our spay/neuter clinics where they are spayed/neutered, vaccinated, treated for earmites and fleas and given any medical attention they may need. We then board the cats for a recovery period during which time we assess whether they might be friendly and adoptable or if they are too 'feral' or wild to be adopted.

Boarding and Sheltering the Cats

In a perfect world, we would be able to transfer all the friendly cats we trap into no-kill shelters in the area, but since they are usually full themselves with cats and kittens to adopt out, we do work on finding new homes for the friendly cats we trap.  Young cats and kittens are worked with by volunteers to be tamed down and placed into homes as well. Those adult cats that are too frightened to be handled or picked-up by people are returned to the original property where they were trapped. There is always adequate shelter and a caregiver who watches out for them and provides food and water on a daily basis. We keep in touch with caregivers from the areas we work on and offer continued veterinary care and services to the cats we have made a commitment to helping from the first time we got involved trapping.

Trapping Philosophy

TNR was a difficult concept for Animal Allies volunteers to originally accept. When we began our group in 1994 and started getting heavily involved with our work helping stray cats, we quickly realized that many of the cats that came our way were not friendly and too frightened to ever be adopted into a home. Many had been outside on their own too long to ever trust humans again and some were even born out there and never had social contact. It wasn't long before volunteer's houses were filling up with cats that could not be placed into homes. It was then that we began to research the TNR philosophy and have been implementing this very successfully ever since.

Humane Treatment of a Terrible Problem

We believe that TNR is the best most humane approach for dealing with this widespread problem. It is making the best out of the very terrible tragedy of cat homelessness. The problem is created when uncaring people abandon their friendly cats that were not spayed and neutered to begin with and leave them outdoors to fend for themselves. Cats then form colonies and start to breed at alarming rates creating dozens of kittens in one year. Before long the problem is out of control and completely unmanageable. Once Animal Allies volunteers complete their work in a TNR colony, it is usually left with a much smaller number of cats all of whom are spayed, neutered and vaccinated and taken care of for the rest of their lives by their caregivers and Animal Allies.

Need Help With Feral Cats

If you have a feral cat problem in your area or know someone who does, please call us at 228-6755 or email us. If they are known friendly stray cats that are easily handled and placeable for adoption, we encourage you to contact your local shelter about taking them.

Please note that we have a very limited number of volunteers and may not be able to assist immediately as we are always working on many areas at any one given time.  The more help and legwork the caregiver can do, the quicker we are able to help the cats in the area.