A feral cat is defined as a cat that was (1) once domestic, then lost or abandoned and has reverted to a wild state, or (2) born outside to a stray or feral mother with little or no human contact. This definition is important because many people erroneously believe that feral cats are an entirely different species from domestic cats when in fact, they are not.

Through no fault of their own, feral cats have never known the love of a human bond or the comfort of human touch – and because of this, they do not make good pets.  Then, once they enter a city or county shelter (most often after being trapped by unknowledgeable people), they are generally not adopted but instead euthanized immediately following the mandatory holding period.  Contrary to what many people would like to believe, there is no “magic place” where these cats happily live out their lives nor are they “put to sleep” (putting something to sleep implies that they will wake up – and feral cats … as well as many dogs … at the pound do not ever wake up).  They are routinely and senselessly killed daily and in large numbers at animal shelters across the United States.

The fact that “feral” and “domestic” cats are not different animals is evident during kitten season each year.  Every spring, summer and well into the fall, shelters are inundated with kittens.  If caught early enough, a “feral” kitten looks and acts the same as a domestic kitten.  Many people are also mystified that so many kittens continue coming in year after year.  Shelter and rescue workers scramble for months to try to adopt out the onslaught. Huge numbers of these kittens come from feral mothers and are brought in by people with no knowledge of how to catch the mother or the ability to spay this “stray” cat.  As soon as many in the public have the knowledge and the resources, these stray cats are spayed or neutered and endless litters and their progeny are halted in their tracks.  But the resources have to be in place for them to act immediately.

What happens when the information, assistance and affordable spay-neuter services are not in place?  Un-spayed and un-neutered cats reproduce at astronomical rates.  One female can have an average of 1.4 litters per year with an average of 3.5 live births per litter – equaling five additional cats per breeding female by the end of just one year.  These numbers then grow exponentially as the offspring, who can breed as early as four months of age, then continue the cycle indefinitely. Theoretically, a single pair of breeding cats and their offspring can produce 420,000 kittens over a seven-year period. Consider, also, that half of the approximately 146 million cats in the United States are feral or without caretakers or guardians. It is then easy to see how the need can quickly surpass current resources.

TVFOF targets the problem of cat overpopulation by employing the nationally-recognized, humane, and effective solution known as Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR). Feral cats are caught in humane traps, spayed or neutered, then released back to their home territory following an appropriate recovery period.  TNR is far more cost-effective than trapping and killing feral cats, saving valuable taxpayer money.  Spaying and neutering costs average approximately $50 per cat, while the price tag for animal control to catch, house and ultimately euthanize a cat is more than $100.

Statistics show that a TNR program effectively reduces the feral cat population in both the short- and long-term. With trap and kill methods, the vacuum effect comes into play, ensuring that group after group of cats will need to be subsequently trapped and killed in an endless cycle.  Feral cats establish territories based on availability of food and shelter. When the cats are removed from the environment, more cats move in to take advantage of those existing resources. These new un-spayed and un-neutered cats breed prolifically to fill the void.  The vacuum effect is well documented.

Each year almost nine million dogs and cats are euthanized in the U.S. because there are not enough homes and resources to keep them in shelters.  In California alone, 750,000 to 1 million animals are killed for this reason.  Sadly, more than 60% of the animals brought to California shelters die there even though $50 million per year (coming largely from taxes) is spent by animal control agencies and shelters on cat-related expenses.  By funding TVFOF and making TNR a viable option for more people, we will reduce euthanasia in two ways:

• Adult feral cats brought to the shelter – only to be kept for the mandatory waiting period and then killed – are spayed or neutered, vaccinated and then allowed to return to their home territories to live out their lives in stabilized colonies; and
• Equally important, the number of “feral” kittens coming into our shelters every year is greatly reduced, creating less demand on the limited supply of available homes.

Finally, by way of a local example, the city of Berkeley reduced the euthanasia rate for all cats brought to its shelter by 87% in the first four years that free spay-neuter services, including the Fix Our Ferals program, were implemented. As Fix Our Ferals has demonstrated since its incorporation in 1998, the only effective way to address the cat overpopulation problem is through an aggressive TNR program – and TVFOF seeks to replicate this extremely successful program.