Our block has always had a stray problem. Over the years, there have been a proportion of our neighbors who let their house cats out to roam during the day and some that lock them out all night. Not at all a good idea. Add to that the fact that most of the felines concerned weren't spayed or neutered and you get the picture. Round it out with one more fact - the irresponsible cat owners who moved away and left their felines or, as in Buddy's case, decided to throw them out for whatever reason.
Just to digress, Buddy was tossed out (literally) by one of our neighbors and in almost 11 years of co-habitation, I could never figure out why. Buddy never bit or scratched any of us. If Annie annoyed him, he would smack her muzzle with his paw - claws in! If you accidently hurt him in any way he would complain by meowing at you. He never scratched the furniture, just his scratching post or sometimes the rug. If you told him to stop pulling on the rug he listened. He spit/hissed only twice in all that time. Once at me, the first time I picked him up and I deserved it because I wasn't handling him correctly. And once, during his illness, after the Vet Tech gave him an enema. The Tech handed him back to me and he voiced his disgust with the entire proceedings with that particular verbal outcry.
For many years, I've wanted to take control of the stray/feral cat situation but did not have the time especially after Buddy's diagnosis and the progression of his illness. With spring and longer daylight here, I'm contemplating how best to go about this. We're tired of finding the occasional dead kitten in the yard knowing those kittens need not be born to live a short time in such terrible conditions.
I'm researching traps and as time permits, I need to decide if I will trap, neuter/spay and release to control this problem or try to get the cats accepted by a rescue group. Not knowing much about any of this means I'm in for quite a bit of research. If anyone reading this particular post has any information I would find helpful, please leave a comment. Any suggestions are most welcome.
There is actually a city service called "The New York City Feral Cat Initiative"(NYCFCI). See if this offers any solutions for you:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nycferalcat.org/
Here's more of a Do-It-Yourself site:
http://www.neighborhoodcats.org/HOW_TO_MANAGING_A_FERAL_CAT_COLONY
And Feral Cat FAQs from the ASPCA site:
http://www.aspca.org/adoption/feral-cats-faq.aspx
Hope one of those helps!
Thanks for the websites. NYC Feral Cat Initiative is one I will check out along with the Feral Cat FAQs from the ASPCA. I'm already familiar with neighborhood cats.
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