Humane Society Teaches Volunteers to Help With Feral Cat Problem

Five feral cats have showed up in Diane Evan's yard and she's not quite sure what to do about them.

They sneak into her garage and shimmy under her house. Two of them are bullying her own two housecats, and she worries about the wild cats getting struck by cars when they run into the road. So Evans, who lives in Greenburgh, made her way to the TNR (Trap, Neuter, Return) program workshop during the New Rochelle Humane Society Open House on Sunday. 

Staff member Beverly Press says NRHS has received calls from Port Chester, Greenburgh, Scarsdale and New Rochelle about feral cats and with the onset of mating season, the workshop seemed to be a timely topic for the Open House.

TNR is an increasingly popular approach to cat overpopulation, according to Dana Rocco, Shelter Manager. There are tens of millions of feral cats in the United States, according to the NRHS website. Shelters don’t have enough staff to go out and trap feral cats in many communities. 

Recent studies, Rocco said, have also shown that removing feral cats was not an effective approach. The remaining cats in an area quickly reproduce, replacing or surpassing the number that existed before. 

Research showed that sterilizing the cats and returning them to their colony allowed the number of animals in an area to stabilize and slowly decrease with fewer litters of kittens, less fighting, and less disease. The effect can be significant, according to information on NRHS’s program website.

Over seven years, one feral cat and its offspring can produce over 420,000 cats. During mating season, from March through November, feral cats can have two or three litters of kittens.

“We depend on volunteers for this program,” said Rocco. “There’s just not enough staff for us to handle this on our own.”

New Rochelle Humane Society serves 17 communities in Westchester County, including Ardsley, Dobbs Ferry, Eastchester, Elmsford, Greenburgh, Harrison, Hartsdale, Hastings-on-Hudson, Irvington, Larchmont, Mamaroneck Village, New Rochelle, Pelham Manor, Rye, Rye Brook, Scarsdale and Tarrytown.

In the TNR program, volunteers rent humane traps to catch feral cats in their community, then bring them to New Rochelle Humane Society. A veterinarian spays or neuters the cats for a small fee, then they are returned to the community. 

“We saw 400 cats last year,” said Rocco. “We hope the TNR program can reach 500 this year.”

Since feral cats are usually not suitable for adoption, this approach allows them to live out their life span with an increased quality of life, less overpopulation, and without the nuisance behaviors such as howling and fighting associated with their mating seasons. 

Diane Evans makes an appointment to bring in two of the cats for next Thursday. After taking the workshop, she is confident she’ll be able to coax a pair of ferals, one of which she has named Bertha Butts, into a rented trap for the visit. 

Feral cats may be long shots for adoption, but there are plenty of cats, dogs, and other animals, that are eager to find a human at New Rochelle Humane Society. Besides the TNR workshop, Sunday’s Open House is also an Adoption Day. 

Outside the workshop room, there are plenty of humans looking for animal companions. Visitors peek into the chainlink kennels at dogs available for adoption and others hang out in the lounge, a large room filled with animal furniture and cats. It’s like speed-dating. People and animals getting to know each other, both hoping they’ll make a match. Sassy, a young dachshund, hits pay dirt when a little girl and her parents decide to take her home. 

Just off the hallway, staff member Beverly Press introduces visitors to another group of kitties, no less adorable, who have graduated into another cohort: The Lonely Hearts Club. Today their adoption fees have been reduced by half, because they’ve been at the shelter for longer than four months. It’s hard to figure out why, because they are all adorable. Just because they’re a little older or have some special need...well, that’s no reason they shouldn’t have a forever home. 

Oliver is 5 years old and blind. He perks right up when his kennel is opened. Oliver was adopted from the shelter by a family who decided to move and they brought Oliver back to NRHS. Press isn’t sure if Oliver can see shadows, but she knows he gets along just fine. On days he’s not in his kennel, Oliver sits up front with a dog named Lady. He makes his way to his litter box just fine and he’s tackling a pesky obesity problem. 

“He’s like The Biggest Loser,” says Press referring to Oliver’s weight loss. “We keep them until they find a home."