How Can You Tell If A Cat Is Feral?

Many people ask me all the time what a feral cat it. A feral cat is wild- one that has not been socialized to people. A lot of people do not understand feral cats and think they are pests to be eliminated especially because they spray, make a lot of noise at night, argue with each other and appear to ruin personal property. Sadly, because ferals are not usually altered, 4 cats can turn into 400 too quickly. This can lead to public health issues.

Folks in animal welfare are typically concerned about controlling the population of ferals and about the health of feral cats. Of course, they are also concerned about the public health implications of feral communities as well. In the past, feral cats were simply removed and euthanized. Twenty years of hard research has shown that this method of control, controls nothing.

Nature abhors a vacuum and when one removes a cat or a colony, we make room for another to move in. The catch and kill method only increases the stress on feral groups and research has shown it actually increases territorial fighting, spraying and breeding.

Our new method to deal with ferals is called TNR or Trap, Neuter and Return. In this case we use humane traps to catch all the cats in a colony, spay or neuter them and return them to the area they are used to. This causes them to settle in and not become as territorial, the spraying decreases and of course, the breeding stops. Internationally, we have created a way to identify an altered cat called ear tipping. The top tip of the left ear is removed during altering. This tells anyone who is doing TNR that this cat is already part of a managed community and is altered.

Ultimately, the best resource in the United States for information on feral cats is a group called Alley Cat Allies at www.alleycat.org. They can also assist you to find a good organization to work with you in your local area.

Dawn works with New Cat Condos to develop the best cat tree for your kitty. You can check out more about cat condos on their website.