Guys?- another dose of education needed

[hissy]

Here is another article about the misconceptions of feral cats. Please get involved and send a letter full of meaning and not hatred to the paper. Remember a lot of what happens to ferals is done so because of ignorance

Reading Eagle

 

[hissy]

Ok I emailed him and got a reply. He said in essence that the officials need to be contacted, he just reported the story. Let me see if I can chase an addy for these officials down-

 

[valanhb]

What a sad situation. Sounds like that town desperately needs to enact a TNR program, and also needs to educate people. This is one of those cases where Laurie and Christy's website could do a world of good.

 

[kiwideus]

What is a TNR program?

 

[hissy]

Hi Ki-

TNR stands for Trap Neuter and Release. It is an effective way of controlling a wild cat population, but because it means you have to have dedicated people involved, and resources (traps, and time and patience) it is an often overlooked way to deal with feral cats.

Basically, you set your traps (humane traps) and you capture each cat in the group, take it in to a vet to be fixed. Then keep the cat for at least a week while it recovers, then turn it back into the exact area you first found it. Once the entire group has been TNR then someone comes in to manage the colony- feeding them at scheduled times, providing water and when necessary medicines. Most ferals live a long time this way, and once they know that food is available on a daily set time frame, they stop getting into garbage and getting into mischief and become a wonderful group of feral cats.

With all the females and males fixed, there are no new kittens, less cat fights and territorial squabbles, the lives of the cats are extended and there are no kitten mortality rates anymore.

Most people do not want to expend the time or try and locate the resources to do this, a quicker fix for these ferals (in the uneducated population) is simply to dispose of them. Kill them and be done with it.

The reporter's answer showed me, he is not interested in the facts, he simply reports them and he really does not have a clue about feral management at all. But he is not alone, many are clueless.

 

[ldg]

I'm so sorry I haven't had time to get to this yet! I will also try to chase down addy for appropriate officials, I WILL have time tomorrow.

Unfortunately, we don't have any info up yet on the research site, but I do have the info. I have started working on a letter, but now I know (thank you, hissy!) that there's not much point in e-mailing the author. I will do so anyway, maybe he'll "just report the facts."

When done, I'll post here.

Laurie