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Stray and Feral Cat Program

//Stray and Feral Cat Program
Stray and Feral Cat Program2024-02-01T10:13:29-04:00

If you are a resident of Warren or Washington County, New York and have a feral cat overpopulation problem in your neighborhood, we want to help!

How Can We Help?

We will work with you to develop a plan to spay/neuter the stray and feral cats through our TNR program.

We will help you to re-home any strays that are deemed adoptable.

We will educate you on how to care for the feral cats that are returned to your site.

What is a Feral Cat?

Feral cats are domestic cats. Like pet cats. The difference is that feral cats have had little or no contact with humans, and so they are fearful of us and cannot be adopted. They do have a home—the outdoors and like pet cats are protected under the NYS anti-cruelty laws.  Despite their wild nature and resourcefulness, cats are often unable to fend fully for themselves. They are subject to the dangers of weather, cars, humans and other animals. They breed indiscriminately, if left unaltered, and can be seen as a nuisance to the community.

What is Trap-Neuter-Return?

Trap: Humanely trap all of the feral cats in a colony (a group of cats living outdoors together).

Neuter: Take the cats in their traps to a veterinarian or clinic to be neutered, vaccinated, and eartipped (a universal symbol indicating they have been neutered).

Return: Return the cats to their original outdoor home.

Trap-Neuter-Return is the humane way to help these feral cats by ending reproduction, stabilizing the feral cat populations, and improving individual cats’ lives. The behaviors and stresses associated with mating— pregnancy, yowling, and fighting,—stop and urine spraying is significantly reduced.  Stabilizing the cat population will help improve your neighborhood and allow you to coexist better with these cats.

Why Not Remove the Cats?

If cats are removed from a location, new cats will move into that territory (this is called the vacuum effect). Removing the cats does NOT solve the problem.  Stabilizing the colony by spaying and neutering is the only way to keep the population from exploding further.

If you have a feral cat overpopulation problem in your Warren or Washington County, NY neighborhood, please email [email protected] to request assistance.