TNR Handbook The Guide to Trap-Neuter-Return For the Feral Cat Caretaker Neighborhood Cats TNR Handbook 2nd edition The Guide to Trap-Neuter-Return for the Feral Cat Caretaker www.neighborhoodcats.org find us on Facebook @NbrhoodCats Text by: Bryan Kortis Additional text by: Susan Richmond, Meredith Weiss, Anitra Frazier, joE. Needham, Lois McClurg & Laura Gay Senk Cover photo by: Petr Salidar Photos by: Meredith Weiss, Bryan Kortis & feral cat caretakers (as credited) Special thanks to: Nancy Peterson, Cat Programs Manager, The Humane Society of the United States Neighborhood Cats, Inc. © 2013 The contents of this book may be copied or distributed in whole or in part for educational purposes or personal use, except in the City of New York, NY. In the City of New York, NY, contents of this book may not be copied or distributed for any purpose without the express written consent of Neighborhood Cats, Inc. With respect to any organization or individual, permission to copy or distribute may be withdrawn at any time within the sole discretion of Neighborhood Cats, Inc. Please contact us for further information. Except as specified herein, all rights are reserved. Table of Contents Foreword by Susan Richmond 1 Introduction by Anitra Frazier 3 Chapter One: What is a Feral Cat? 4 Chapter Two: What is Trap-Neuter-Return? 6 The advantages of TNR – colony level 6 The advantages of TNR - community level 7 Failed alternatives to TNR 9 1. Trap and remove 9 2. Feeding bans 10 3. Rescue or relocation 11 4. Do nothing 12 Chapter Three: The TNR Process – An Overview 13 Chapter Four: Building Good Community Relations 16 Community development techniques 17 1. Walk and talk 17 2. Deal calmly with hostility and resistance 17 3. Hold community meetings 18 4. Send a community appeal letter 19 5. Post informational flyers 19 6. Change municipal laws and animal control policies 20 Poisoning threats 20 Fleas 21 Keeping cats out of gardens & yards 22 1. Deterrents 23 2. Containment systems 26 Chapter Five: Food & Water 28 Feeding stations 28 Feeding tricks 32 Preventing water from freezing 34 Preventing food from freezing 36 Nutrition 37 Vitamin C to the Rescue by Anitra Frazier 40 Preventing urinary tract disease 43 Chapter Six: Winter Shelter 44 Types of shelters 45 Doorway flaps 49 Insulating materials 49 Extreme cold 50 Placement 50 Chapter Seven: Preparations for Trapping – the Sequence 51 Chapter Eight: Recommended Equipment 57 Box traps 57 Drop traps 61 Trap dividers 62 Kitten screen 63 Feral cat dens 64 Transfer cages 65 Chapter Nine: Trapping 67 Mass trapping 67 Trapping supplies – the basics 68 Trapping supplies – optional 69 The trapping 70 1. Withhold food 70 2. Allow enough time for trapping 71 3. Check the traps 72 4. Prepare the traps 73 5. Place the traps in the territory 73 6. During the trapping 75 Winter trapping 78 Transfers from traps 79 Special cases 79 1. Friendly ferals 79 2. Kittens 80 3. Nursing mothers 82 4. Pregnant cats 87 Wildlife 88 Raccoons 89 Skunks 90 Opossums 90 Hard-to-catch cats 91 Drop trap 91 Train the cat to enter a box trap 92 Camouflage trap 93 Lure into a closed space 93 Picking one out from the crowd 94 Cats who avoid the trip plate 95 Cleaning traps & equipment 95 ii Chapter Ten: The Neighborhood Cats Drop Trap 97 Preparations 98 Setting up the trap 98 Dropping the trap 101 Transferring out of the drop trap 101 Disassembling the trap 103 Chapter Eleven: Caring for Cats in Traps 104 Materials needed 105 Preparing the holding space 105 Feeding and cleaning 106 What if a cat does escape? 108 Chapter Twelve: The Feral Cat Setup: Long-term Fosters 109 Materials needed 109 Placing the cat inside 110 Feeding and cleaning 111 Chapter Thirteen: Spay/Neuter & Veterinary Care 113 Preparing for surgery 113 Types of veterinary treatment 115 Eartipping 117 Post-surgery 119 FIV/FeLV testing 120 Chapter Fourteen: Recovery & Return 125 Length of recovery period 125 Lactating mother 126 Location of release 126 Chapter Fifteen: Relocation & Sanctuaries 127 Relocation 127 Sanctuaries 131 Chapter Sixteen: Adoptable Cats 133 Determining if a cat is adoptable 133 Lost or abandoned pet cats 133 Feral kittens 135 Friendly adult ferals 136 Veterinary care for adoptable cats 136 Socializing feral kittens 137 Socializing feral teenagers & adults 139 Finding good homes 142 iii Chapter Seventeen: Storm Preparation & Recovery 147 Before the storm 147 The aftermath 148 Chapter Eighteen: Feral Cat Resources 150 Books 150 Children’s books 150 Equipment & supplies 151 Feral cat organizations – lists 151 Funding for TNR 151 Handouts & flyers 152 Kitten care 153 Spay/neuter resources 153 TNR ordinances 153 Tool kits 154 Videos 154 Webinars 154 Appendices Stop poisoning poster 155 How to build the Neighborhood Cats Winter Shelter 156 TNR trapping log 160 iv Foreword One of the first ferals I ever met was a cat named Apollo. Before that, working in a spay/neuter clinic, I’d seen multitudes of other feral cats but they were different. Those were quiet little figures huddled in traps, doing their best to make themselves invisible. Apollo, on his home turf, was a personality and a presence. He’d prowl his colony’s territory, a rusty, overgrown lot in the heart of the city, slipping from patches of tall grass to the lot’s lone twisted tree then back to leap easily onto the old brick wall bordering the end of the property. Sometimes he’d bask on the sun-warmed bricks. Thoroughly feral, Apollo never let humans come near but he went about his business in a purposeful, dignified way, leaving no doubt he knew he was in charge of his life and liked it that way. Apollo was born in 1999, the year Neighborhood Cats started. In those days there were no services in New York City to manage free-roaming cat populations and little awareness, even among animal care professionals, of what defined a feral. If you were a cat born outdoors and wary of humans, you were pretty much on your own. Maybe you’d find a nice person to feed you but Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) was still little known so your likely fate would be a constant struggle for survival and a lot of kittens left behind on the streets. If you were brought to the city shelter, your chances of coming out alive were near zero. The introduction of Trap-Neuter-Return by Neighborhood Cats began to change all that. To many, the notion of catching cats, fixing them and then putting them back outside was puzzling, even startling, but results were dramatic. Within a few years, managed colonies like Apollo’s dotted the city. Blocks and neighborhoods, where skinny, weepy-eyed kittens had been ever-present, had no more kittens. The cats were healthier. The 3:00 am screeching and fighting over mates, pungent tomcat urine and other nuisances that upset and angered residents were quietly gone. TNR had arrived, but for all its advantages, several more years would pass before a strong citywide network was in place. Across the country, similar advances were underway. Communities, from tiny specks of towns to major metro areas, were exploring this new method that finally offered hope for forgotten animals. Neighborhood Cats led the way with programs and innovations that steadily fostered the growth of Trap-Neuter- Return in New York City and elsewhere. In 2002, we held our first workshop to teach NYC residents how to safely and effectively practice TNR; Neighborhood Cats TNR Workshops have now trained and certified more than 5,000 residents and each month that number continues to grow. Our website and award-winning materials, including the instructional video How to Perform a Mass Trapping, have aided countless caretakers in their efforts to help feral and stray cats. Among our “feral firsts”: creation of a humane trap specifically for feral cats, design of a commercially available drop trap, authorship of 1 an online course on TNR for Humane Society University, development of an online database to track feral cat colonies and help return eartipped cats to their caretakers, and formulation of a model TNR ordinance to guide municipalities nationwide. In 2006, The Humane Society of the United States, the nation’s most influential animal welfare organization, officially endorsed Trap-Neuter-Return, affirming the power of TNR to impact lives for the better. Other national animal welfare groups are also now solidly in support of TNR, including the ASPCA, Best Friends Animal Society, Maddie’s Fund and PetSmart Charities. In 2011, as numerous other municipalities have done, the New York City Council made TNR its official policy for managing free-roaming cats. Today, the discussion has shifted from whether TNR should be practiced to how it can be spread most widely and effectively. These are promising days for community cats. None of this would be possible without the caretakers everywhere who fill the food bowls no matter the weather, bait traps, provide shelter, tame and carefully re-home kittens, and sacrifice their own time and money. A million small acts of kindness have led to the accomplishment of these milestones. By the time Apollo and I crossed paths, he was a well-fed, well-sheltered, comfortably middle-aged ex-tomcat. He and his colony mates fully enjoyed their lives, in a way that could not have happened without TNR. There are no cats left in the lot now though sometimes when I walk past I can almost see a little black shape basking on sun- dappled bricks. This guide was written in memory of old friends and with hope for the future.