Feral Cat Situation: Legal/ Ethical Options

I don't have any advice, but just wanted to interject - Who is going to vaccinate all of these cats?

Oh god.

I don't know.

Should we do that when they're spayed/neutered?

Actually that might be on tap... let me check some old emails.

Rabies vaccine is set up, nothing else though I don't think.

patiodog would be the best person to answer about what vaccinations are required.

Virtually all TNR (trap-neuter-release) programs will vaccinate for "distemper" (really herpes, calici, and panleukopenia, usually) and rabies at the time of surgery.

Honestly, cats are not very susceptible to rabies, though if someone is bitten by an unvaccinated cat the legal requirements for quarantine are still fairly stringent. This burgeoning colony would be a prime place to see a panleukopenia outbreak, though.

A concern that you might bring up if the conversation can be restarted is that outdoor cat colonies also are susceptible to infection with FIV ("kitty AIDS") and FeLV ("feline leukemia"), and risk of transmission of to neighborhood cats increases with the size and sexual activity of the colony.

Good luck. I've plenty of experience dealing with cats from hoarder situations, and they tend to start out just like this. I'm glad you and the neighborhood are trying to nip things in the bud -- the longer it goes on, the less the likelihood of getting everything under control without a large loss of kitty life.

If talking with her doesn't work, I'd probably (hate to say it), but sneak over and catch them in the cat condo without her permission.

Is there any time they are not around? If so, go over then with your team and catch the cats and bring them to get fixed. When she comes back - act all innocent and say, but I thought we had all agreed to this...

I do think it is a wonderful thing you and your neighbors are doing. This cat population will get out of hand if you don't do this and then you will be forced to call the animal control where they will get destroyed.

Some VERY useful stuff there, thanks so much, patiodog.

I asked NN if she thought a fresh voice would be helpful in dealing with CND, and offered to take over some communication -- I'll wait for her (NN's) response before doing that. I don't want to make things worse by piling on.


Linkat, CN is retired as far as I can tell is home the vast majority of the time -- her daughter and some other friends/ family members come to her but I don't think she goes out much or at all. And I definitely hope to figure this out in a non-antagonistic way. Fingers crossed.

Drill, baby drill!

<but only if you have to>

Sozobe,

From what I have read I am assuming this is in a populated neighborhood? In the country, this would not be a problem. I just trap the cats and get them spayed and neutered.

Someone did mention "hoarder" in a post or two. I'm not sure CN is a hoarder but if she doesn't allow the spaying and neutering of these cats all of a sudden you will have a whole colony that only grows and grows, causes problems for the tame cats in the area, etc. My only advice would be to try to get CN to understand that NOT spaying and neutering these cats is going to cause them and the neighborhood more problems than anyone is going to want to deal with.

It took me two years to clean out a colony of cats here at one dumpster because people would not stop dumping them. I'd trap them, get them fixed, adopted out those I could tame, let the others back out. Some people just do not understand how important it is to curb the population of animals. Did you know from just two cats having an average of six kittens per litter in ten years you have two million cats? There was a chart on the net one time about it. I found it when I first opened my shelter. Believe me, firmly planted spaying and neutering in my mind!

I wish I had more advice to give but country and city living just isn't the same for some things.

I found this article that says a pair of feral cats can produce 400,000 cats in seven years. Maybe it was one million in ten years that I saw? Anyway, it's a bunch!

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/108377/feral_cats_what_to_do_if_you_have_a.html

I'm reading CND as the fork in the cat dish (oh, a new analogy every day or so), but could easily be wrong. I had an elderly aunt than wasn't clearly out of touch but who said entirely different things to different people and used one against the other. As time goes by, I can regard it all with a glint of humor, but not back then. Maybe it is CN that is vascillating about decisions, or maybe she is being pushed to, or (???).

No advice from me, but a lot of interest.

Nah. I mean the math is probably right, but disease takes hold and the population drops way down. Of course, it often affects domestic cats as well.

I'm close to saying trap them in your yards and go ahead with your plans, now, while it would be useful/could work. Not sure of my standing in saying that, though.

Several more emails and a face-to-face conversation with NN later, I'm not much clearer on what's up.

I had started to form a hypothesis that CN wants all seven cats -- as in, not just as feral cats but actually her cats, in the house* -- but that CND thinks that is unrealistic and doesn't want her to. In that scenario, CN is upset if we take the cats but CND doesn't want CN to have the cats, so we reach the sort of impasse that we are currently experiencing.

NN says that she's talked to CN about that though, and that CN has said that she'd like to keep one but it's unrealistic because of her health. That was CN directly, not through CND. It could still be that CN thinks that having all of them around as strays is the perfect solution (they are "her" cats but she doesn't have to care for them in any meaningful way).

I just realized that I didn't really get a direct answer from NN about asking CN about giving all seven cats back to her (to live on her porch) after we spay and neuter them. I brought it up, NN's answer was that CN had told her she wasn't sure she could take even that one cat, but that's answering a different question -- inside the house vs. outside the house. I'll follow up on that more.

Where things are for now is that one of the group of neighbors actually works in this field (TNR programs, stray cats) and has been a big help and she's out of town right now, NN wants to wait for her to come back and go from there. She also thinks (I agree) that pausing the communication with CND and CN would be good, give a little breather as they seemed to be getting more defensive, then approach it again.


*New information is that CN has been letting the cats in her house, singly and in groups.

Other new information -- before NN trapped the cats, CN got a call from a neighbor (none of us know who, it wasn't someone from the group that has been working together on this) complaining about the cats. I asked whether CN knew it was not one of us, NN thought so, but I could see how it could complicate things. The call casts the whole thing as something CN is doing wrong, and we are stepping in to clean up her problem, rather than a bunch of us (including CN) working together to solve the problem.

It might also be a wedge back in - let CN and CND know that you have heard of complaints, sure don't want things to escalate, let's get "our" plan completed so this doesn't turn into a bigger problem.

and yanno, if there has been a recurrence of illness, this could partly be a control thing - can't control the disease, but can control what happens on her property with "her" cats

Totally agree with this Beth. Good luck Soz!

Good idea.

I can't offer any legal advice on the trapping/neutering issue, but if the cats ever have any problems with their kitty condo association, have them give me a call.

This whole situation sounds suspiciously like a euphemism for the situation leading up to the invasion of Iraq. There's even a coalition of the willing!
You're not really George W. Bush trying to justify yourself are you soz?

yeah!

Nuke dem cats.