Most TNR cats do not need to be trapped a second time, unless there is a crisis like a medical issue or the colony needs to relocated due to duress (ie demolition). Experienced and skilled trappers have techniques that can get many of the most wiley/wary cats.
This is not a good reason not to do TNR.
Many vaccines provide immunity for many years past what the vaccine manufacturer suggest. Over-vaccination can induce VAS (Vaccine Associated Sarcoma). Here is some factual information from a vet:
There are two different vaccines, one is yearly, and one is for three years. According to the papers, the one given was a yearly. Regardless of the "maybe it lasts longerâ premise, itâs little comfort if a human is bit and has to get rabies shots, which are expensive and potentially dangerous.
The Center for Disease Control has an annual rate of known rabies infections in (unvaccinated) cats at about 300 cases per year. Most of the rabies incidents are wildlife related. Here is a link which explains more about this. The last documented cat to human transmission of rabies in the US was 35 years ago:
http://www.alleycat.org/page.aspx?pid=686
There have been 21 cases of humans contracting rabies in the US in the last 10 years = while it is possibly that your outside cat may encounter a rabid animal, statistically she has a low chance of being infected, and an even lower chance of transmitting this to a human.
What you mean is that most TNR cats donât need to be trapped a second time because they donât survive long enough, the average lifespan for ferals and strays being only 2 to 5 years.
Thereâs no shortage of good reasons not to do TNR:
The folks at Forgotten Felines Rescue have a kinder, more responsible approach to this tragic problem: TNPS (Trap, Neuter, Provide Sanctuary),
Honest question here for the cat people.
My parents had a farm about 100km outside of Edmonton Alberta. Very cold in the winter. There was a population of semi-feral cats that lived in the barn.
The cats had a purpose - without them the mice would be rampant and Hanta virus is a serious issue. My dad put out a fixed amount of food every day. Weather and predators (foxes, coyotes, occasional cougars) kept the population basically stable - with occasional jumps if there were a lot of mice.
On occasion my parents would capture as many as they could and neuter them before letting them go in the barn again. Sometimes all the cats would be gone, and other cats would move in from neighbouring areas and farms.
So, was their decision to provide a fixed amount of food and some neutering the right one? What else could/should they have done?
If by âincidentsâ you mean âhuman cases,â a big factor in that is that people who are bitten by stray cats and dogs tend to seek medical advice, get the vaccine, and avoid contracting full-blown rabies, while people who have been bitten by bats (the most common source of human rabies cases in the U.S. by far) may not even be aware that theyâve been exposed until symptoms develop.
A lack of recent human rabies cases attributable to cats shouldnât be confused with a lack of recent human rabies exposures by cats. CDC data indicate that rabies in the U.S. is three times more prevalent in cats than in dogs. In fact, this month has been a big one for cats exposing people to rabies:
The worse news for TNR advocates comes from last September, when a kitten from a TNR colony at a state park in Jamestown, RI was responsible for exposing its adoptive family to rabies.
Your parents were far more enlightened about cat population management than the farm and ranch people I grew up around in Texas (which I realize is damning with faint praise). The barn cats I met as a kid seldom (if ever) got fed, and if they got too numerous the farmer/rancher would stuff whole litters of kittens into sacks and drown them (sometimes the mother, too). Iâll never forget finding a mother cat crying as she tried to dig up the shallow grave where the farmer had buried her kittens. Of course, these folks were also killing off any and all native predators that might have helped to keep a lid on the cat and/or rodent populations.
Your parents did more than many farm people would. They fixed the cats, and provided shelter and food. Cats that are born and raised on farm are working cats - if they had a mother who was a competent mouser who taught them how to hunt. There are fewer resources in rural communities for low cost spay and neuter. Those farm cats sound like they had a good quality of life.
I grew up in a rural community and am aware of some of the practical but heartless solutions many farmers use to deal with excess litters of kittens and cats(ie drowning, shooting, poisoning).
Exposure to rabies does not equal contracting rabies. Seeing a rabid animal or being in proximity to a rabid animal = exposure. Being bitten by a rabid animal, or having its saliva in an open wound means that the person needs to be treated with injection ie they have potentially contracted rabies. None of those rabid cats were vaccinated !
If the CDC has only two known cases of humans contracting rabies from cats in the last 35 years, then these sensationalistic stories with few specific details about feral cats and rabies donât hold much water. Please note the references in the stories to unvaccinated cats. There is plenty of hysteria with regards to feral cats being terrible vectors of disease. Truly feral cats AVOID humans and are not touchable. Semi-feral cats are touchable only after a human has earned their trust, which usually takes months or longer. Toxoplasmosis can be common in cats but is also very common in urban wildlife like raccoons. It is usually transmitted through oral/fecal contact so wearing gloves when gardening and washing your hands with soap and water after touching an animalâs feces will greatly reduce your risk. It can also be transmitted through raw or undercooked meat:
http://www.nwco.net/044-wildlifediseases/4-4-toxoplasmosis.asp
With regards to the alleged âbillions of native animalsâ
the biggest culprit for this wildly inflated figure is a paper filled with junk science:
http://www.voxfelina.com/2013/05/thre-greater-threat-is-junk-science-an-open-letter-to-the-avma/
If feral cats are living in an urban setting with access to garbage and vermin(if the colony is not managed), how/why would they simultaneously be decimating bird populations that are uncommon within cities ? Cats that have a regular food source do not also voraciously hunt. The greatest threat to wildlife is human encroachment and destruction of their habitat for things like suburbs. Pollution and contamination of water by industry also plays a major role in wildlife mortality and extinction.
The much quoted statistic that feral stray cats only having a life span of 2-5 years is difficult to prove. I have known several elderly stray/feraL cats who lived 9+ years in hostile locations like a garbage dump. There is no reliable way to tabulate this statistic, without micro-chipped data from strays and ferals that is accessible for years (ie technology does not become obsolete). Establishing the age of an adult cat is difficult even with a healthy indoor cat as the condition of the teeth is dependent on genetics as much as the type of food fed, nutrition and access to veterinary dentistry. Even kittens from the same litter can have different stages of development.
Re: mythical sanctuary ie beautiful gardens with free roaming cats with heated shelters and hundreds of full time volunteers and 24 hour medical care. Caboodle Ranch started out with this intent - but went disastrously wrong after they became overwhelmed and mismanaged. Most TNR groups do advocate sanctuary type situations for cats that are ill, disabled, elderly, or show the potential to be successfully socialized. The information here:
http://tntrealitycheck.com/media/ProvidingSanctuary.pdf
deals more with individual management of feral and semi-feral cats that need to be sanctuaried for whatever reason. Taming can be a very labor intensive process, and needs a great deal of patient human input. This does NOT mean taking entire colonies indoors, which is not a great solution unless the colony is only a couple of cats. This paper also strongly makes the case for not taking in more cats than can be attentively cared for.
In short: you seem to be advocating AGAINST TNR in any and all forms, harbour a great deal of suspicion towards feral cats as diseased predators, but offer few solutions except some type of sanctuaried warehousing for 50 million (est) feral, semi-feral and stray cats. I love cats, and help cats, but I think that housing 50 million cats for their 10 year+ lifespan is an extremely expensive and not very workable solution.
Volunteers are doing the bulk of TNR efforts FOR FREE, and TNR groups work along side established rescue groups to make accessible free or low cost spay and neuter to help slow down reproduction/reduce shelter intake/reduce euthanasia rates, as well as advocating that a pet is not disposable, and should be a commitment for that petâs lifespan.
Euthanizing ALL THE CATS EVERYWHERE is a very expensive and unworkable solution. Does that mean that all pets would be euthanized as well ? Most urban feral colonies are a direct result of people not fixing their pet, then rehoming subsequent litters to people who also do not spay/neuter. Intact cats can be desperate to mate and will get outside by any possible means = a continuously perpetuating cycle.
I hope that since you feel so strongly about sanctuarying cats, that you personally will start by volunteering for a rescue group today to try your own hand at sanctuarying a feral or semi-feral cat. No one person can save them all, but you can start by helping ONE. Please do this.
There are still cases of rabies in cats, even though it is rare. If you canât quarantine the animal, then you have to get the shots. Figures of probability donât matter in instances where you canât wait it out to look for symptoms. All of the information becomes white noise.
http://www.yorkdispatch.com/news/ci_18141032
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/pr2006/pr068-06.shtml
I could post a lot more, but you should get the point. Itâs rare, but are you willing to go by statistics, instead of receiving treatment?
Again, the issue and problem isnât as black and white as it seems on paper. I do think that a better plan would be to put the animals on some type of rescue land, but space is limited in certain parts of the country. My area, and the surrounding area, is fairly urban.
From your last link : quote=âIMB, post:57, topic:14916â]
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/pr2006/pr068-06.shtml
[/quote]
ââŚthere has not been a case of human rabies in New York City for more than 50 years.â
Exposure should be taken seriously, but exposure =/= transmission.
Um, no. The medical definition is a tad stricter than the common definition:
Rabies isnât transmitted by by photons or air, so seeing or being in the presence of a rabid animal doesnât qualify as exposure. The people in question came into direct contact with those cats and/or their virus-laden saliva.
Toxo can infect most warm-blooded animals (chronically or fatally), but felines are what parasitologists call the organismâs definitive hosts - the only hosts in which the organism can complete its life cycle and shed infective cysts. Non-felines donât spread toxo except by becoming prey, but minimal risk to humans from infected wildlife doesnât mean there arenât serious consequences to allowing domestic cats to contaminate wildlife habitat with toxo cysts. TNR feeding stations attract raccoons, rodents, and other opportunistic scavengers and put them at higher risk for contracting toxo, but even wildlife that lives far from human development isnât safe.
"Yes, the parasite-infested stray dog Iâve been feeding likes to shit in your vegetable garden and flower beds, but itâs okay - just wear gloves when you pick up after him and wash up afterwards. 
"
Where do you suppose meat animals get toxo? From cysts shed by free-roaming cats infected by eating prey infected by eating cysts shed by other infected cats (and so on).
Thereâs far more native wildlife in cities already than you realize, but there could be more. Did it occur to you that many native species would be more common in cities if not for cat predation? And doesnât your implication that âmanagedâ feral cats donât hunt undermine the common TNR argument that theyâre doing us a service by preying on âverminâ?
Citing the delusional and blithely self-contradictory Peter J. Wolf as an authority on wildlife impacts of feral cats hurts your argument. Of course, you could do the math yourself using a comfortably conservative estimate for population and a kill rate thatâs only possible for cats with access to a regular supply of non-living food:
Horrifying, isnât it? Letâs assume that the cats have more food and are killing mainly for entertainment:
Still awful! Letâs try a predation rate documented for well-fed pet cats hunting only for entertainment:
Still deplorable, but I donât expect you to care. Hard-core feral advocates ignore this simple math or rationalize it away, because their obsession blinds them to the suffering and death of billions of other animals.
[quote=âSatinSatan, post:56, topic:14916â]
Re: mythical sanctuary ie beautiful gardens with free roaming cats with heated shelters and hundreds of full time volunteers and 24 hour medical care.[/quote]
Yeah, there arenât enough of those, and even one mismanaged sanctuary is one too many. But whose fault is that? Youâre the one who values cats above everything else, so you should be leading the efforts to develop alternatives that are more humane, effective, and socially acceptable than TNR. I donât expect that to happen, though. IANAMHP, but it seems clear that volunteering with adoption and education programs or permanent sanctuaries doesnât satisfy certain emotional cravings as well as doing TNR.
Seriously??
Iâm really not trying to convince you of anything, SatinSatan. I understand that youâve decided what you want to believe and that nothing I say will make any difference to you. Iâm just offering an evidence-based alternative to the usual TNR propaganda. Now itâs time for me to step away from the keyboard - Lucky Wilbury, my current rescue cat, is overdue for a hug and a warm lap to sit in.
Okay, Mr. Cat-Haver, what are you doing to improve this situation for cats ? Besides having Wilbury, who I am not sure is so lucky. I would not choose a human companion who views me as a disease-laden killing machine, who argues against efforts that would help my kin to live healthier and safer lives, and disputes basic science.
You have made many assumptions about my values, as well as my intelligence and critical thinking and know exactly zero of my efforts to assist cats. You continue to resist some basic facts (ie the kitten with rabies did not bite anyone, and there is no mention of its saliva getting on/in anyoneâs open skin = exposure, not transmission). If you go back to the 1980âs there was some BIG PANIC about the actress who ate something off of Rock Hudsonâs fork, as his HiV status was publicly revealed shortly after this occurred. She was EXPOSED to HiV via minute amounts in his saliva which were on his fork. However, the risk of TRANSMISSION was extremely low, and said actress did not become HiV positive as a result of this.
Your calculations of predation are astronomical. I live in a city in an area with a large stray population. I walk 99% of the time. In a given year I find the remains of two to four birds/rodents that appear to have been hunted/eaten. In that same year I come across 10-20x the amount of birds/rodents/raccoons/ killed on the street by a vehicle.
My cats, and the cats I foster are inside cats only(for the last 15 years). They do 0% killing for food or pleasure. Since I began living with cats over 25 years ago my cats have killed a total of two birds, one mouse and one vole. This is hardly the wildlife apocalypse you cite.
In an urban setting, people walk their dogs and clean up after themâŚmost of the time. Everyday I am exposed to some canine feces on the street, and therefore my hands when I take my shoes off if I have been unaware. Donât forget about the people who carry bags of their dogâs warm poop around, who then go grocery shopping or to the cafe without washing their hands first ! The many, many, many raccoons happily poop everywhere, as do the squirrels, chipmunks and possums, and other parasite laden critters like rats, mice, voles, etc.
Cats are not the only warm blooded creature that transmit parasites, viruses or disease. I am exposed to all manner of human diseases on the street via human urine, sputum, cigarette butts, vomit, used crack pipes, used syringes, used condoms, not to mention their sneezes, coughing, and the shared surfaces that have been touched in places like transit or the grocery store. Some of these people also have intestinal parasites, bedbugs, scabies, head lice and/or pubic lice. Some may have fungi like ringworm, yeast infections or nail infections. I am exposed to many life threatening diseases and viruses every day in the most ordinary of contexts. Oh no ! However the risk of transmission is for the most part very low.
Most people choose to minimize their risks - ie hand-washing, safer sex, correct food storage and preparation. This does not eliminate the risk. What do you think should be done to improve the lives of feral and stray cats, that would help to minimize their disease transmission, and to create a humane and safe existence for them ?
no. after reading this, double no. but thank you for the links:)
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