Tough Stuff

Even though I've been doing some sort of cat rescue for about seven years now, I still consider myself to be naive about how things work. Something came up this week that really bugged me. Intellectually, I knew about it, but I stuffed it into one of the dark closets in my mind, so I wouldn't think about it.

I need your help. I need to come up with a better solution. I'm not sure what it is, but I hope someone can figure it out.

This has to do with TNR.

I KNOW there's a severe overpopulation of free-roaming cats in this country and beyond and I know that with ferals, there's not enough time in the world to domesticate each and every one of them, then find them all good, loving homes. Somewhere we figured out that if we can't bring them to a shelter, since they'll likely be euthanized, we opt to return them where they came from and hope they'll survive on their own or in a managed situation where they have a caregiver who feeds them and looks after their needs.

So far, this sounds great, but it falls short in one painful way.

What happens when we trap a feral and she's pregnant? Unless she's obviously pregnant, there's no way to know without doing an exam. An exam can't be done on a feral cat since they won't allow a human to handle them. This puts the trappers into a bad situation. They trap the cat. They KNOW it COULD be pregnant, but the only way to find out is to anesthetize the cat-which KILLS ANY UNBORN KITTENS it may be carrying.

Unless we can find a way to determine if a feral cat is pregnant BEFORE it is anesthetized, we'll just keep on killing kittens.

Yes, I know there are the arguments that most feral moms are usually in such poor condition to begin with, that it's very likely that their offspring will be stillborn, born with defects or will die shortly after being born. It's a VERY tough life. Trapper Jeanne tells me she rarely sees juvenile cats or kittens. They just don't survive.

So is it better that they don't ever get a chance or is there a way we can find those pregnant ferals and get them into foster homes until their kittens are born and are thriving? Last year I had a feral mom with three kittens. I socialized the kittens and they all got adopted. Mom got a barn placement with a nice family who'll look after her for the rest of her life.

(Feral Mama-right, Jelly-Belly, Elmo and Happy on their kitty condo, left)

THIS works for me. We NEED to find a way to stop aborting these little ones and find more foster homes. It's not that tough to do. If I can do it, anyone can do it.

I need some good ideas to help these cats. What do you think would help? Let's make some changes!