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Feral Cat Population on the Rise

Sep 01, 2011 by Kylie Jane Wakefield

The out of control feral cat population is a major issue in cities and towns across America, and Greenpoint is no exception. Roaming the streets, rummaging through trash for scraps, these felines multiply quickly and usually cannot be tamed. Owing to the work of local and city-wide groups such as the Spay Neuter Intervention Project (SNIP), the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), and Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition (BARC), feral cats have a chance at leading better lives.

Getting an exact count on the number of feral cats in New York City is very difficult, according to Senior Administrative Director for the ASPCA’s Community Outreach program, Jesse Oldham. “The majority of free-roaming cats are feral, which just means that they are not socialized to humans and are not good candidates for adoption. Typically, feral cats will do whatever they can to avoid contact with people so contrary to the connotation of the word ‘feral,’ typically feral cats are not aggressive.”

Vinny Spinola of Williamsburg’s BARC says there are many residents in the neighborhood who, like his organization, do Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR). One of these people is Regina Massaro, who spends much of her time helping animals in need. Massaro runs SNIP, a rescue organization she started in 1992 and incorporated in 1998. “Greenpoint is like most communities,” she said. “The majority of residents simply do not care or understand the plight of a homeless animal and how it has a direct effect on their tax dollars. Hundreds are put to death weekly at tax payer expenses.”

SNIP receives $100 per month in donations from PETCO for their spay and neuter programs, which Massaro said is not enough. She encourages residents to “support the efforts of rescuers who are saving lives in their community with a financial contribution.”

Spinola believes the feral cat problem is due to the bad economy. “Unfortunately, with the way the economy is, people are dumping their animals and getting rid of cats. It’s an uprising problem again. This year was worse than years before. Cats breed very fast.”

BARC doesn’t spay/neuter, but they send the cats to undergo the procedure when they trap them. Massaro said, “Spay/neuter is the key. The leading cause of death is birth!”

The ASPCA partners with the NYC Feral Cat Initiative, a group that trains citizens how to do TNR and help their neighborhoods. “Once a cat colony is fixed, there is less smell (male spraying is reduced greatly), less noise (mating and fighting noises are reduced greatly or entirely), less cats (no reproducing cats, no females in heat attract less male cats to the area) and continued free natural rodent control,” said Oldham.

For the ASPCA, it’s all about getting residents the right message about the proper steps to control the cat population. Oldham said, “We encourage people who do not like the cats to use cat deterrents to keep them off of their property (the FCI website has many suggestions) and we encourage the people who are feeding the cats to be responsible about how much food they put out and cleaning up after themselves (the cats can’t do it!) and, of course, to fix the cats they feed. The unofficial TNR motto is ‘If you feed it, fix it!’” The organization also discourages “dumping” or moving the cats, because usually they just return to the territory.

Massaro, who helps both cats and dogs, wants to give animals the chance for a decent life, whether that means rescuing, feeding, or spaying and neutering them. “In 2007, I was quite ill, [and it took] three months to resolve my medical issue. The second day of January 2008, I was informed I would die. I am here today because of skilled medical professionals. I have often thought of how many animals I have had the good blessings to have spared through spay/neuter since my recovery. How tragic it would have been had they never been spayed/neutered, bringing more into the world only to suffer.”

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1. Great article! I remember reading one colony of over 300 cats diminished to zero over a period of 15 or 18 years. The Chamber of Commerce and town/city supported the TNR efforts. It really does reduce the suffering and the nuisance factor.

   — MJ · Sep 1, 09:01 PM · #

2. TNR programs and their advocates are making absolute fools out of each and every one of you that they con with their nonsense. Not only are they causing untold damage to ALL native wildlife (directly and indirectly) and further spread of deadly diseases to all animals and humans, but are also doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to curtail cats’ breeding rates.

   If you do the research, as I did using data from the most “successful” TNR programs, you’ll easily find that not even ONE TNR program has EVER trapped more than 0.4% of existing cats in any one area for over a decade now. They simply cannot trap them faster than they breed out of control, no matter what they do. And those cats that learn to evade traps go on to produce offspring that now also know how to evade any trapping method used. So not only are 99.6% still and ALWAYS breeding out of control, and spreading their diseases everywhere, and still destroying ALL wildlife, but TNR fools are also ensuring that any future generations of these devastating invasive-species won’t even be able to be trapped. This is why, due to TNR-Advocates’ insistence that they have “the answer”, that their feral-cat population has now climbed to an ecologically-deadly 150 MILLION feral-cats across the USA. Soon to turn into 1.5 BILLION cats within the year if you apply cats’ breeding rates to previous population numbers.

   Find whatever way that you can to destroy all feral and stray cats on-sight. Avoid using traps if at all possible because trapping is what slowed everything down to where cat populations have now sky-rocketed out of control.

   On advice of the local sheriff where I live I used a .22 equipped with a good illuminated-scope and a laser-sight for use when they are most active, dusk to dawn; as well as to afford precision aim for a humane kill. I shot every last one of them on my property to restore all the native wildlife to proper balance. Mission accomplished! 100% total success! This is even a more humane method than terrorizing trapping and animal-shelter methods; and why it is the preferred feral-cat management policy in so many areas today. One moment the cats are happily stalking defenseless animals to cruelly torture again, the next they are dead and don’t even know what happened. Making your land 100% cat-free is something that cat advocates haven’t been able to solve nation-wide for 30-40 years. On my land only 1 person in only 2 seasons was able to accomplish what they couldn’t attain in decades. Why is that? The cost per cat was also only 0.3 CENT, 3 cats PER PENNY, a ONE-TIME expense (5000 rounds on sale for only $15). All cats gone for the price of a few cups of coffee. And contrary to another famous TNR-Advocate’s bald-faced “vacuum effect” LIE … NO CATS REPLACED THEM. The NATIVE predators and their required NATIVE prey that WAS here and BELONGS here is what replaced their lousy invasive-species cats that had destroyed the entire native food-chain. This year I’m even enjoying birds I’ve never seen in my life before. Two of the warblers listed in the top 10 songbirds of the world for their song. What an amazing sound to awake to each morning. You have no idea what you’re missing if you have cats by you. I now feel sorry for anyone who has cats. Their lives and world are dismally empty and they don’t even know it.

   May you have as much success as I did, and so quickly and inexpensively too.

   p.s. Avoid the use of poisons if at all possible that, if released into the food-chain, would go on to harm the very wildlife that you are trying to save from destruction by cats. And please bury or incinerate the carcasses so all the highly toxic diseases that cats now carry won’t go on to harm nor infect more wildlife or humans. Which, if you do a Google search, now even includes cats spreading The Plague in the USA. So much for that myth that cats would have saved people from The Plague in Europe, cats would have made it far worse, and just might do so this time around.

   — Woodsman · Sep 2, 08:52 AM · #

3. Cats are an invasive species. Bred by man for man’s purposes through selective-breeding, a form of genetic engineering. They are NOT an indigenous species ANYWHERE on the planet today and have NO PLACE in nature. A cat killing ANY wildlife is no more natural than if someone raised piranha for pets and dumped a tank of them in your bath with you in it, or releasing them in your favorite swimming areas, or in all your neighbors’ backyard pools. Piranha as pets deserve the same freedoms and protections as cats, don’t they? They too serve a purpose in the ecosystem, right? In fact, this would be even more natural than putting cats everywhere—the piranha haven’t been genetically engineered through selective breeding to make them unique from all other fishes in nature.

   Cats in the TOP 100 WORST Invasive-Species:
   Global Invasive-Species Database: http://www.issg.org/database/species/ecology.asp?si=24&fr=1&sts=sss

   Cats are NOT exempt from invasive-species laws. Much to the dismay of all criminally irresponsible and psychotic cat-lovers who are desperately trying to raise them to some absurd level of “Community Cats”. If they do that then I’ll just raise Community Piranha and release them in all your lakes and pools, or Community Black-Mambas and release them in all your backyards and parks, then claim the exact same protections for them as cat-advocates want for THEIR INVASIVE-SPECIES CATS. It’d only be fair!

   Cats have no more right to be out in the natural world than some genetically engineered insect that, if released out into nature, would destroy all wildlife. JUST AS CATS DO.

   — Woodsman · Sep 2, 08:55 AM · #

4. Here’s a fun read to PROVE how effective TNR programs are.

   “In NYC there are currently 465 registered TNR colonies. When TNR began in these colonies, 6047 cats were present – today, there are 4523 cats present, a decline of approximately 25 percent.” (Quoted from an Alley Cat Allies member who was SO proud of this.)

   Of those 6,047 cats they’ve only REDUCED the total by 1,524 cats, about 127 PER YEAR. That’s only 0.08% of the 1,806,310 feral-cats within the city’s limits. (data taken direct from TNR-advocates’ own resources)

   Guess how many have been born IN JUST THE LAST 6 MONTHS (hoping like hell that they’re not breeding every 4 months). Let’s do the math…

   (1/2 total = females) 903,155 X 5 (avg. number in a litter) = 4,515,775 NEW CATS. Which lowers the number of them that have been reduced by TNR idiots to only 0.03%. THEY ARE GOING BACKWARD!

   Guess how many will be born in another 6 months? (4,515,775 / 2) X 5 = 11,289,438.

   Remember. the first 903,155 females are still breeding. For another 4,515,775. Add in the pre-existing 1,806,310, bringing the grand total in just ONE YEAR to 17,611,523 CATS. NEARLY EIGHTEEN MILLION. Which means that TNR groups have only reduced the cat-population by 0.008% of them. That’s not even ONE-ONE-HUNDRETH of ONE-PERCENT.

   1,806,310 cats become nearly EIGHTEEN MILLION CATS … IN JUST ONE YEAR. Keep in mind too, these are the numbers in JUST ONE CITY.

   Catching on yet to how TNR people are just spinning wheels in the sand and accomplishing NOTHING?

   Well, they are managing to torture cats and torture or starve-to-death all native wildlife, annihilating the whole native food-chain with an INVASIVE-SPECIES, and spreading deadly or lifelong illnesses to all manner of animals and even humans while doing all this. Including even the plague today.

   http://outbreaknews.com/2011/07/29/colorado-stray-cat-tests-positive-plague/
   http://www.pagosasun.com/archives/2011/07July/072811/webplague.html

   So much for that oft spewed urban myth that cats would have saved everyone from the plague in Europe. If the cats infect the rodents with Toxoplasma gondii, then cats even attract the plague right to your door since the toxo-infected rodents are now attracted to cat-urine. Cats would have only made the plague even more intensive and an even larger disaster. As they will this time around.

   — Woodsman · Sep 2, 09:00 AM · #

5. Please donate so SNIP can continue to save lives. SNIP, 6531 52nd Avenue, Maspeth, NY 11378 or through PayPal on SNIP Facebook page. Thank you.

   — Spay Neuter Intervention Project (SNIP) · Sep 2, 11:00 AM · #

6. TNR is not a perfect solution but it is the only reasonable approach to solve the feral cat problem. TNR is important but educating the public is also key. This is the only way we will get to a point where populations can be better controlled. It is ludicrous to believe killing cats en masse without addressing breeding would ever do anything besides provide a limitless supply of cats to shoot.

   — barcode79 · Sep 4, 11:52 AM · #

7. Look up the term TNR advocates just LOVE to use on how they reduce their feral-cat numbers, their candy-coating feel-good term of “Death by Attrition”. This means that their cats will die from disease, cat-attacks, animal-attacks, exposure, road-kill, starvation, and any other means that drastically shortens cats’ lives. ALL their cats suffering for how many months it takes to die that way. In many parts of this country and the world this clearly falls under the guidelines for cruelty to animals, animal-abuse, animal-endangerment, and animal-abandonment laws.

   Let’s not forget how TNR advocates don’t hesitate to carve up cats with scalpels as well as cutting off parts of their ears, from which they have to heal-up for weeks before they try to survive again. As if letting them die of “attrition” wasn’t bad enough, TNR-advocates start them off by terrorizing them with traps, cages, and sticking knives into them first.

   Not only are they cruelly torturing cats, but also all wildlife they inflict their cats upon. Their cats literally clawing the guts out of any wildlife to use it as an agonizingly and slowly dying twitching play-toy for their cats. And as soon as all the “fun” has drained out of their play-toy, they go on and find another one to torture. This is no different than if cat-owners went to a pet-store and bought canaries and hamsters then threw them at their cats to watch their cats tear them apart for their amusement. What about all the native predators that depend on all those animals for their ONLY food? Their cats cause all those animals to STARVE TO DEATH. TNR-advocates’ cruelty knows no bounds.

   If you want to raise revenue for your towns and cities in order to deal with this invasive-species ecological-disaster properly, start charging all these TNR advocates with severe fines and imprisonment for CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.

   They’re not doing this out of any goodness of their hearts. THEY DON’T HAVE HEARTS. Proved, 100%.

   — Woodsman · Sep 6, 08:53 PM · #

8. Only one small problem with your plan Woodsman, how can you tell which cats are feral and which have owners?

   — Keyser Soze · Oct 16, 03:33 PM · #

9. I’ve a box full of collars. Perfectly legal to shoot someone else’s animal destroying your own animals where I live, someone’s pet or not. There’s absolutely NO difference between a stray and feral cat. BOTH are invasive-species. BOTH are destroying native wildlife. BOTH are spreading diseases deadly to wildlife and humans. If people want to keep invasive-species for pets they need to keep them confined and quarantined ACCORDING TO LAW. The loss of their cats is THEIR fault, not mine. Let the criminally-irresponsible parents explain to their children why their behavior and values got their cat killed by gun or car or animal attacks or any of the other ways that your cats that you don’t really care about get killed. Perhaps in that lesson of explaining to their children why their criminally-irresponsible behavior got their kid’s cat killed that the parents too will grow up into morally and ethically responsible humans one day. Whether they get killed by animal attack or road-kill or by gun it’s all the same thing. YOUR lack of concern for that cat is what got it killed, there is NO OTHER REASON. You lousy “cat-lover” hypocrites, you’re all the same.

   — Woodsman · Oct 21, 08:06 PM · #

10. Woodsman HAS BEEN POSTING ON 100’s OF SITES the same exact wording. He’s obviously a landowner with a financial interest in being able to shoot cats on his property. Most of his arguments are distortions of statistics or irrelevant if you check them. Such as links to studies showing that fleas cause disease, etc. So what?
    TNR does help reduce cat populations. Those who promote it have the same goal as the landowners like this guy. Cats are just wild animals. The reason they are multiplying on your land is because you upset the ecosystem by killing all the coyotes, wolves, owls, etc. Certain groups are heavily propagandizing to advocate killing of all wild animals in favor of expanding human expansion, profits, etc…Successful TNR threatens their goals.
    Shooting cats is not the answer. Some of them are already friendly and have been set free by ignorant people… There’s a lot of youtube videos of happy endings with for feral cats. An example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V0c3shTi-A . If the goal is to eliminate suffering, TNR helps. Also, these programs must be allowed to continue because eventually science can find a more effective way to mass sterilze cats via biotech and perhaps some sort of dna-altering substances which can be put in their food. (and which would only sterilize cats, not other species). Something like that. This would also solve the problem for landowners like the one who’s posting all this over-puffed comments.

    — Bernie · Feb 17, 01:00 AM · #