Today is National Feral Cat Day. An estimated 70 million cats live outdoors, getting by the best they can, often in social groups called colonies. Unlike stray cats who enjoy human companionship but find themselves without it, feral cats aren’t socialized with humans, so they are afraid of them. So you can’t just adopt a feral cat that happens to live near you.
Ways to Help Feral Cats
If you can’t adopt feral cats, what can you do for them? You can help take care of your local colonies by making sure they have food and shelter. Something else you can do is very important: get them neutered to prevent their having lots and lots of kittens. Areas like Florida have kittens all year round, and overpopulation can happen in a hurry. Feral cats can be trapped, neutered, eartipped to identify that they are neutered, and then returned (TNR) to their colonies where they can live out their lives but not continue to reproduce. Groups like Alley Cat Allies can teach you more about how that is done.
Many communities have groups that actively help organize affordable spays and neuters for feral cats going through the TNR process. Our local group, Alley Cat Allies, even has an agreement with our county shelter that they can get the feral catss out and return them to their colonies. This is somewhat unusual, and animal control in most areas of the country doesn’t make extra provisions for feral cats. In fact, feral cats usually die in shelters because they aren’t adoptable.
What can you do where you live to help feral cats? First of all, you can spay and neuter your own cats so that you don’t risk accidentally contributing to the feral cat population in your area. You can feed feral cats. If you do feed them, check to see if you have an organization in your community to help you with trap, neuter, and return.
Also, if you live in a cold climate, you can build shelters for feral cats. Winter is coming, and feral cats will appreciate a place to escape the weather.
Most important, spread the word that feral cats are part of the community, too, and that they deserve our care and concern.
Photo credits
flickr/Quinn Dombrowski
flickr/fauxto_digit
One of our local cities (Burbank) has a barn cat program for ferals who get caught up in their system. I wish all ACCs did! There are a lot of industrial complexes, not just farms, that could use them to keep away vermin.
Great post for spreading the word about feral cats ! They need and deserve our help, and everyone can do a little something. Purrs
We hope more and more people will do what they can to help the feral cats.
As Summer mentioned, we’re an agricultural state so we have many barn programs too. It’s such a great idea!
well said – we wish more people would take a stand (year around) for these cats!! so glad your local group has an agreement with animal control!
Thanks for such a wonderful post to raise awareness of this special kitties. We sure hope more humans help to make their lives easier.
I have a feral cat that comes inside to eat and shuns us otherwise. Many don’t have a patron of their own to take care of them so I am grateful and happy to support this type of initiative. Their lives aren’t exactly easy..
Great post! It’s a shame Natural Feral Cat Day falls one day after BtC4A since I can’t do both. TW has been feeding homeless cats since she was a teenager. Before it was even called TNR she teamed with a neighborhood boy and they got every stray on the block fixed. Today she still carries cat food in her bag at all times in case she runs across a hungry cat. Everyone doesn’t feel this way. Some nasty woman screamed at her and called the po po a few weeks ago. She won’t go back there but just donated a case of food to help feed them.
I wish there wasn’t a stigma associated (1) with cats in general and (2) with ferals. They deserve kindness and compassion and food and shelter.
Good information to have! Thank you for caring for the kitties!
Our hope and purr is that every feral find a safe place and someone to feed them.
Hugs madi your bfff
Some people are so mean to feral cats. We just don’t understand that at all. Thankfully though there are those who care and lend a helping hand. 🙂
Gweat posty. We purray dat sumday all cats have luvvin’ homes and no longer live on da stweets.
Luv ya’
Dezi and Lexi
The group our mom and dad work with has a very large feral community they take care of as well as some smaller ones. Mom was disappointed that none of the groups in our town did anything for feral cat day. XOCK, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo
We dont have anny feral colonies around here and it actually seems a bit strange we dont. We are near both fields and woods and it is a dead end street, so no dangerous traffic…
Wonderful post, friends!
Our local shelter (Feline Rescue) does a wonderful job of helping people build simple and easy cold weather shelters for cats. The winters are pretty scary here and our hearts just break for all the cats that are trying to survive out there.
Fantastic post – great facts and to the point! If only people would stop dumping cats on the street… And of course, the the key to it all is spay/neuter. Purrs from Deb and Zee/Zoey kitties