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TNR, barn cat initiatives help CVHS reduce feral cat numbers

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Around this time of year, shelters see an influx in stray cats. Although this is typically referred to as "kitten season" because of the high number of newborn kittens, plenty of adult cats arrive at the shelter during this time. In fact, "kitten season" often brings with it an increase in feral cats being taken to shelters. When the weather is warm, people spend more time outdoors and, as a result, are more aware of stray and feral cats, leading to their capture and transport to a shelter.

Feral cats are not the same as stray cats. A stray cat has lived in a home before and may still trust and rely on people. Feral cats, on the other hand, have no relationship with people and are more similar to wild animal than a housecat. Feral cats are not adoptable; they do not want to live in a home. That being said, the increase in feral cats being brought to shelters at this time of year is challenging. If they are not adoptable, what is a shelter supposed to do with them?

Years ago, feral cats brought into shelters would've been euthanized. They could not live in a home and shelters could not care for them indefinitely, so euthanizing them was considered to be the most humane option. Nowadays, programs are in place at shelters to help better control the feral cat population and offer alternatives to euthanizing them.

Trap-Neuter-Return programs, also known as TNR, are becoming increasingly popular and are the ideal solution to the problem of feral cats. While some shelters have their own TNR programs that they run and manage, others partner with local groups and assist with the spay/neuter portion of the program. With TNR programs, feral cats are caught in humane traps, fixed and ear-tipped, and then returned to their feral cat colony. Once returned, they are no longer able to keep breeding and creating an endless cycle of feral cats. The ear tip, which is performed while the cat is under anesthesia, is a visual representation that a cat has been fixed so it's not trapped again. Once an entire colony has been fixed, the cats will live out their natural lives and, over the years, the population of the colony will decline on its own.

TNR programs are great because they are quick, easy, and allow feral cats to continue living the lives they are most comfortable with - ones that don't include people! Sometimes, though, cats are brought in that are not from a colony or the person who found the cat is unwilling to bring it back to where they caught it (this typically happens when people want feral cats removed from their property). For CVHS, from this problem arose the Barn Cat Program.

The Barn Cat Program has made a tremendous difference at our shelter and in the way we are able to help animals. For some cats, a home life is just not possible. They are either too fearful of people or too aggressive to be safely placed in a home. With the Barn Cat Program, feral cats, often in pairs, are adopted with the intention of allowing them to live outside, usually in a barn. Barn Cats are given regular food and water and a warm, dry place in a barn or shed to call home but have the freedom to come and go as they please without ever needing to interact with people. In return, these cats often prove to be great mousers and keep the barns free of pests. Just like with the TNR program, all cats that are part of the Barn Cat Program are fixed prior to leaving the shelter so they cannot keep reproducing.

Thanks to spaying and neutering, we are working towards decreasing the feral cat population. If there are feral cats in your neighborhood, contact your local shelter about what programs are in place to help get the cats fixed.

Alaina Goodnough is the Promotions Coordinator at Cocheco Valley Humane Society in Dover, NH. She lives in Sanford, ME with two parrots, a cockatoo, a cat, and two dachshunds. She can be reached at CVHS at devassist@cvhsonline.org. To learn more about Cocheco Valley Humane Society, go to www.cvhsonline.org or call 603-749-5322.

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May 30, 2016 at 12:09am
Making your expendable vermin-cat problem into someone else's cat problem with your "barn cat programs" isn't a solution; that's the tactic of criminally-irresponsible, criminally-negligent, bambi-cartoon-educated, mommy's-basement-dwelling, pavement-brained cretins. Just as low-life as those that dumped those cats on you in the very first place. You are absolutely NO better than that. Worse in fact, you actually had a chance to humanely euthanize that unwanted invasive-species piece-of-śhîť vermin animal of yours and were too spineless and heartless to do what is required of you to be a good steward of this planet. Now someone else has to do for you what you were too immature, weak, and heartless to do yourselves; and SHOULD have done by yourselves if you REALLY cared about those unwanted vermin cats.

Here's a good read to show you what happens to every last one of these relocated invasive-species disease-infested vermin feral-cats that people dump-off on farms and in other rural areas in ANY location of North America. (And, as I recently discovered; in Canada, the UK, and probably worldwide -- they'd be fools not to.)

www . predatormastersforums . com / forums / ubbthreads . php?ubb=showflat&Number=2628942&page=1
(remove all spaces from obfuscated URL)

All you are doing is adding to the cat-shooting quotas of everyone who lives rural. What a nice waste of your money and time. I personally shot and buried literally hundreds of these invasive-species vermin cats to stop them from gutting-alive and skinning-alive the last of the native wildlife on my lands. Cats adopted by pavement-brained fools (who bought 3-10 acre hobby-farms) from "humane" barn-cat programs ran by equally pavement-brained cat-licking morons. Many hunting-forums even pass along contact information of any new "barn cat programs" -- for free delivery of FREE practice-targets between hunting seasons. I don't condone this, because if they miss then I have to shoot them myself when they wander into my own lands. "Hello? Yes, I have a bad rodent problem out here in the country. Can you bring out about 6 of your cats? Thanks!" (A week later: BANG! BANG! Dāmņ, missed one. BANG! BANG! BANG!) Your cats are "valuable", alright. But not in any way that you might ever think.

Cats that are relocated NEVER stay where they have been dumped. This is why you read reports of cats trying to get back to their points of origin hundreds of miles away. All the while senselessly destroying countless numbers of valuable native wildlife in their wake by torturing animals to death for their hourly play-toys. People in rural areas have enough of their own problem keeping these disease-infested vermin in check by shooting every stray cat they see (if only to protect their own animals and cats from the 3dozen+ deadly zoonotic diseases these free-roaming pestilent vermin cats carry and spread to all other animals and humans today).

You needn't go adding to everyone's weekly cat-shooting-quotas by releasing more of these pestilent vermin. "Cute" they are not. They ALL need to be destroyed. There are dozens of native predator species that are MUCH better suited for rodent control. Ones that eat rodents only and don't destroy everything that moves, like cats do. There's a good reason one species was even named the Barn-Owl, another the Rat-Snake. Gray-Fox being another excellent mouser, they don't even have European fowl on their menus and will even climb trees to keep squirrel populations in check. Even the 1.75-inch Masked-Shrew, a David & Goliath success story, evolved a poisonous bite specifically for preying on rodents right where they breed. Even the scent of these miniature marvels being around drives away rodents. But what do their cats do? They destroy these most beneficial of all rodent predators the very first chance they get.

Cat-lickers (criminally irresponsible cat-hoarders) need to become responsible stewards of this planet by getting at least a high-school level of education in matters of ecology and biology so the rest of us don't have to teach you a valuable lesson by shooting and burying every last one of your invasive species vermin cats for you.

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If people advocate for cats as rodent-control on farms and ranches they've already doomed them to being destroyed by drowning or shooting when it becomes a financial liability more than any asset. Ranchers and farmers worldwide are fully aware that cats' Toxoplasma gondii parasite can cause the very same birth defects (hydrocephaly and microcephaly), still-births, and miscarriages in their livestock and important wildlife as it can in pregnant women. Consequently, this is also how this cats' brain-parasite gets into your meats and onto your dinner-tables, from herbivores ingesting this cat-parasites' oocysts in the soils, transferred to the plants and grains that they eat. Herbivores can contract this parasite in NO OTHER WAY. Not even washing your hands in bleach nor hydrochloric-acid will destroy this parasites' oocysts if you have contracted it from your garden or yard that a cat has defecated in.

This is why any cats are ROUTINELY destroyed around gestating livestock and wildlife-management areas in the most efficient, humane, and least-expensive method available. Common rural practice everywhere. The risk of financial loss from dead livestock and important native wildlife from an invasive-species cat is far too great to do otherwise. This cats' parasite is now even killing off rare marine-mammals (dolphins, seals, otters, and even rare whales) along all coastal regions around the world from run-off containing this cat-parasites' oocysts. Letting your vermin cats roam free is absolutely no better and just as criminal and morally reprehensible as throwing indiscriminate rat-poison around on everyone's property, and indeed the whole planet.

Children on farms and ranches also learn how to be a good steward of their lands when it comes to invasive domesticated species like cats, with one simple statement from the ecologically responsible parents (those who are directly dependent upon the very lands on which they live, including yourselves), "If you see a cat more'n 100 yards from any building, shoot it! It's up to no good." They don't bother with expensive spaying and neutering cats, that's too time consuming and costly for a work-cat that's not doing its proper job. That's how animals are "domesticated" in the very first place; keep-alive that which benefits humans, destroy the genetic lines of that which does not. The very same way that you got your vermin man-made cats in the very first place.

The next time cat-lickers bite into that whole-grain veggie-muffin or McBurger, they need to just envision biting down on a shot-dead or drowned kitten or cat. For that's precisely how that food supply got to their mouths -- whether they want to face up to it or not. It's not going to change reality no matter how much they twist their mind away from the truth of their world.

If you want to blame someone for the drowning and shooting of cats, you need to prosecute yourselves -- every time you eat. Enjoy your next meal! At least 1 cat paid for it with its life.
May 30, 2016 at 12:10am
Here is glaring proof of how, as cat-hoarders so often and mindlessly respew, "Trap-Neuter-Release is the most effective means of managing feral cat populations. In fact, it is the only proven way to do so."

The residents of the UK who invented TNR in the 1950's have been relentlessly practicing that failed ideology NATIONWIDE for over 60 years now. And all they have managed to do with TNR is DOUBLE their vermin cat populations -- from 4.1 million vermin cats in 1965 to 7.9 million vermin cats in 2014. And to help, all this time they are still killing them in shelters and legally shooting them to death in rural areas under their animal depredation-control laws. By foolishly hoping and praying that their very own TNR concept will reduce vermin cat populations someday they have now even driven their one and only NATIVE cat species to extinction with their invasive-species vermin "moggies" (feral house-cats) -- with less than 35 "Scottish Wildcats" left in the whole world. (Along with 421 other species that they have already made extinct in the UK in the last 200 years -- OVER TWO SPECIES PER YEAR GONE FOREVER just due to British cultural beliefs, practices, and values.) All the while they still insist that practicing their failed TNR policies will still save their "Scottish Wildcat" from being wiped from the earth forever. You can kiss their "Scottish Wildcat" good-bye too now. (Laughably ironic if it weren't so pathetically, globally, and permanently sad. The population of the UK have made themselves into the ecological-laughingstocks of the whole world.)

Nice plan. TNR sure does work, doesn't it!

You know that saying about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. The British have proved the failure of their vermin cat-insanity for over 60 years now. You too can be just as ecologically destructive, ignorant, and just as insane as the inbred mentalities of the Toxoplasma gondii brain-damaged moggie-licking British by practicing and promoting their failed-belief in their TNR concept! :-)

Here too are some wonderful quotes from an article published by your most revered TNR promoters -- the very "scientists" that TNR cat-lickers always quote out of context to try to support their TNR insanity. Read it and weep (and then quit spreading your ecosystem-destroying LIES):

"'virtually no information exists to support the contention that neutering is an effective long-term method for controlling free-roaming cat populations.' 'free-roaming cats do not appear to have sufficient territorial activity to prevent new arrivals from permanently joining colonies.'"

Levy, Julie K., David W. Gale, and Leslie A. Gale. Evaluation of the Effect of a Long-Term Trap-Neuter-Return and Adoption Program on a Free-Roaming Cat Population. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 2003, 222(1): 42-46.

Now explain to the whole world why you have been lying to them (and yourself) all your sad sorry cat-licking life.

BONUS INFO:

Here's a good site for you to dream about at night. It shows how your "loving and humane" euthanasia by "TNR attrition" works to reduce cat populations by your supporting, promoting, and practicing TNR. A wonderful compendium of pages and pages of photographs and articles on how you truly help anyone's unwanted and expendable vermin garbage-cats.

http : / / realoutdoorcats . tumblr . com /

Enjoy!!! :-)

After you view all the photos and read all the articles on that site, come back and tell us all about that concept of "humane" that you use when promoting TNR and how much that you truly love cats. :-) This should be fun! I wonder how many of your and your friends' cats ended-up photographed on that site, all due to you telling them to practice TNR. I hope all your TNR friends come back and tell you how wonderful they think you are now (with an axe). :-)
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