Feral Cats Make National Headlines

Feral story

I absolutely love this! Kudos to USA Today for buying a clue, and putting this story out there. More people need to be educated on feral cats, and how to effectively stop the growing population through non-lethal means.

I know, remember me, I don't DO ferals. But the more I learn, the more I'm exposed to, the more cycles of homeless kittens I see, the more our group has to turn away, the more I want to shout from the rooftop to people! If you just helped one... you could change the world.

So here's me, stepping on my soapbox. I know the cats are hungry. I know you feel bad. I know you want to help. But feral cats are all or nothing. Don't feed if you aren't going to stop the population growth by spaying and neutering. Does that sound harsh? Cruel? Maybe... but lets look at the choices:

You start feeding one homeless cat. It turns into two, and then three, because now there's a constant source of food. One of those is a female, and suddenly 6 months later your 3 is now 10 and 4 are pregnant. 6 months after that you've got 25 and 6 are pregnant. The colony is growing faster than you can keep up, and suddenly you are wondering how you are going to afford to keep feeding. If you can't, those cats who have spent the last year depending on you won't know what to do. Some will move on and find another food source, but some won't make it.

On the other hand, if you don't feed that one homeless cat, it will be forced to move in search of food. It will find it. Hopefully where someone else will make sure it is spayed or neutered. Maybe it will move two houses down to that nice cat lady's house. She'll neuter him and feed him every day, and he'll lay around in her sunbeams for 10 years. Fat and happy.

If you know of a feral colony, the best thing you can do is to work with a local group to do TNR on them. Yes, we know it's not your problem, but those groups will work harder to work with you than you can possibly imagine. A little money, a little compassion, and a little legwork, and you can change the world. Really, isn't that what we're all looking for? Leaving a mark on the world? I know fame and fortune and being a rock star - but what does that really mean... just leave your mark. You can do it today.