Amnesty for Millions and Millions of Community Cats   

[Strays, Feral or Any Other 'Unowned' Cats]

by Malcolm Riordan

Every year across our nation literally millions of cats are taken into city and county animal control shelters.  Ghastly high percentages of those cats are euthanized.  In California the average live release rate of cats from animal control shelters for 2010 was only 28%.  Nationwide,  animal control shelters take in far more cats than they will ever adopt out. 

In the harshest areas for community cats (stray, feral or any other 'unowned' cats) in the US,  the live release rates can be less than 10%.  An example of  a typical worst case shelter scenario: In central Florida an animal control shelter takes in 5,000 cats a year, with efforts they manage to adopt out 500 of those cats, the remaining  4,500 cats are put down and disposed of out the back door.

How did our society arrive at scenes like that?  Do we just accept and rationalize that mass euthanasia of cats is just a sad side effect of necessary animal control policies?  Are these dire efforts to control the numbers of community cats paying off for anyone – …for the shelters? …for society? …for the cats?

The premise and foundation for all this is — in large part – a handful of assumptions, beliefs, and traditions.  Neither our society nor the shelter world had been effectively questioning or challenging the basic beliefs. We just continued on with the traditional approach -  mass euthanasia of unfortunate felines.

The basics of the foundation for the traditional approach are:

 — The assumption and belief that stray and feral cats live a suffering, miserable, brutal,  and short life.
 — That stray and feral cats are spreading disease – especially rabies – to humans.
 — Vehemence that cats are killing too many birds and other wild life during their short, miserable lives.
 — It was accepted and became mandated that our society, via animal control resources, must manage and control  the stray and feral cat populations across the land.

Two Things Here

One: In each of the beliefs and mandates above, recent  statistical facts and results of studies flatly and unequivocally indicate that despite very significant amounts of money,  effort, and volunteering, etc., the animal control/shelter traditional approach to 'the community cat problem' has failed – and has been failing for decades.  CHRONIC FAIL

Studies show that nationwide, on average, the efforts of animal control shelters, their policies, and programs  only reach 3% of all cats. Only 3% of all cats out there have been processed by a shelter  –  whether being trapped, spayed/neutered, and released;  turned in and either getting  adopted or — mostly – get euthanized.  That's it folks.  

All the funds (taxes, fees,  generously  donated monies) and efforts (paid employees, volunteers), all the various spay/neuter programs  providing food, shelter and clean housing until adoption or euthanasia,  all of these expenses  are perhaps already at the upper limit of how much money and effort our society is willing to provide to alleviate or resolve the 'cat problem.'  And despite all this, 97% of the  'cat problem' has been and remains untouched!  Really. FAIL

If the goal of animal control shelter efforts is to manage the cat population, to control any rabies that cats may be transmitting to humans, to relieve cats from having to live their short, miserable and brutal lives, and to save a debatable  number of birds from the fabled excessive killing by cats, then shelter efforts in modern America have failed with success and task completion hovering at 3%.     

OK, so as a whole the cat portion of our nation's animal control system  is an EPIC FAIL.

Two:  We still need to back track a bit and review those assumptions, beliefs, definitions, and traditions that have shaped the traditional  cat policy that our society has put onto community cats.  

Of late, a number of studies and statistics are challenging the current traditional approach. It's becoming so obvious: our community cats are not out there having short, brutal, unhealthy, miserable lives! Rather, in actual fact, cats are able to, have been, and continue to live successfully and happily on their own!   No need for — and no thanks to — the epic 'help' from our human society,  i.e. coming in and killing millions of community cats per year to save them from themselves.

Perhaps we need to take in the perspective that during cats' 10,000 year association with humans,  cats have been living  happily and successfully either with or at the periphery of human society and human activity. So —  when  and  why  did  Americans  [of the northern hemisphere] develop  the startling idea that we should, we must, take control of community cat population numbers?

Some theorize that it really gained a surge of traction in the 1950's when kitty litter was invented or made available. With that, cats were increasingly inside our homes. In recent years cats have displaced dogs to become our most popular pets in the US. [This may have helped to produce a minority — yet loud and dogmatic opinion —  that cats should be indoors only.] 

Anyway,  most  were agreed  that  community stray/ feral cats were an undesirable collection of heathens, ruffians,  diseased, hungry,  unhealthy, and unhappy waifs  that accumulate in  fields, school campuses, and junk yards. That they were the spawn of  irresponsible cat owners not keeping their cats inside and not having pet cats spayed or neutered. This constellation of ideas that developed in our society turns out to be a distinct, uniquely North American notion.  The rest of the world's societies [well,  at least  the societies having any tendency to view cats — if not  as deities — at least as potential pets]  hold the belief that cats need  to go outdoors in order to fulfill their nature,  as well — all the other facets of cats' nature are accepted simply as being the undivided whole of the feline package.

Statistics show that ~70%  of pet cats were taken into adoptive homes from directly off the street or via another  circumstance, with no animal control shelter involvement.  Only about 30% of pet cats are formally adopted from shelters.   

How about shelters being a necessary  system / agency for lost and found cats?  Overall, less than 2% of lost cats are found and reclaimed at an animal control shelter.  Now compare that 2% reclaim rate at shelters with the 60% of 'lost' cats that found their own way home. A lot of shelter effort, again with spare results.

Now what about  the aspect that community cats can bridge rabies to humans, or that community cats are inordinately killing birds? Studies abound on cats both as to being transmitters of rabies and to quantify the level at which they are murderers of  birds. The results however are variable, contradictory, and do not seem to settle the wide differences of opinion of how significantly community cats are creating these two perceived problems. Remember though — that in any case, efforts to control cat numbers (and thus  controlling what they are accused of) the efforts are  effective only on 3% of the total cat population!  Cats, guilty or not on rabies or birds, are going 97% unchecked!   Pretty much a FAIL?

Next month Part II will be presented here – The new conclusions that stimulate new policies:  shelters will increasingly be commuting death sentences on millions of cats!  

So no suspense and little surprise there for next month. The new conclusions and resultant new policies will be largely based by shelters only taking in as many cats a year as the shelter is adopting out and leaving  well enough alone, allowing community cats be successful and happy on their own.

How will this new animal control shelter paradigm look? How will it work? How it will be perceived? Will society accept it? How will shelters address local cat issues, local cat nuisances, and local cat suffering? 

These matters and more will be reviewed in Part II next month.

All photos are from the flickr site: Catspotting (OUTDOOR CATPIX ONLY)

Come out to Woods Humane Society or click on the logo and take a look through some of the 100+ adoptable dogs and cats waiting for you to 'graduate' them into a new life. This month's photos from Funny Dogsite 1001 Front Street, Morro Bay Proceeds for book sales fund scholarships.

Woods Rafter Cat Image on Banner by Malcolm Riordan.

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