TNR program common practice for dealing with feral cats

Dear Red Phone,
“I’m concerned about those cats at the City property, the old Gilroy Police parking lot. ‘There’s no problem,’ the lady told me at Town Cats in Morgan Hill. But they remove them, fix them and return them back to the lot, which is City property and they can’t be there. There’s no food or water for them at all. They are going to die. I’m wondering if anyone can take them, and not bring them back because they are not going to get food or water at all. Thank you.”
Red Phone: Dear concerned for the cats, first of all thank you for caring about the well-being of these felines (we’re all animal lovers here at the Times).
Red Phone spoke with Vice President Kathleen Marvin of the Board of Directors for Town Cats (a Morgan Hill organization) to help answer your question. The practice of humanely trapping feral cats, followed by neutering, vaccinating, micro-chipping them and checking the felines’ overall health before releasing them back to where they were found is actually a “classic method” of dealing with feral cats that is exercised by many other shelters, according to Marvin. This common practice is referred to as the “TNR program,” or “Trap, Neuter and Return” – something that, if shelters “continue to do, the feral cat colonies diminish,” according to Marvin.
The other reason is that while kittens are more easily acclimated to a life of domesticity, many feral cats aren’t – so shelters aim to “give them a healthy, decent life where they can’t reproduce,” Marvin says.
Red Phone certainly understands your concern about feral cats needing food and water. Right now, it’s in the hands of Good Samaritans with “big hearts” who regularly check on feral cat colonies and leave out kibble for them, says Marvin.
The system isn’t perfect, but over time there have been many different attempts to deal with feral cat populations, and “the best practice right now is this,” Marvin explains. She says it’s “a huge problem that people are always looking for creative ways to address.”
If you want to help out with this challenge, Red Phone suggests volunteering at Town Cats and being a part of the solution – or perhaps becoming one of those Good Samaritans that leaves out food and water. Town Cats is a nonprofit, 100 percent volunteer-run organization and is always seeking volunteers.
Call: (408) 779-5761
Visit: www.towncats.org
Facebook: Town Cats of Morgan Hill