Procedural Population Tracking

It has been a slow spring for trapping. We could say it is because we did such a great job last year, but it is really because we have gotten down to the most skittish cats (or clever, if you want to give them some credit). Every cat that is still unfixed on our list is a cat that has never entered a trap or has never even been in the yard (but we've seen in the utility easement and over the fence). We thought we would use this opportunity to fine tune the numbers and write up some information to go along with them.

Click the image for a larger view.

Keeping Track

The ultimate goal of all of this work is the reduction and eventual elimination of the feral cat population through sterilization. Of course, it can be hard to tell if it is working without patience and record keeping. 

Every cat that we see gets put on our list, including the roaming males. Even if they don't stick around, it is good to track them. The data will balance itself out over time (this is the patience part). We have decided to use a rolling two month attendance procedure and this is a brief description of the method:

We start each month with an up-to-date list of the cats and for the next 30 days, the first time we see any cat, they get checked off as "Present," just like an attendance sheet at a school. This list exists for one month. We add any new cats we see during the month to the list.

At the start of the next month, we label any cat that we did not see as "Not Seen" and reset all of the other cats. Again, the first time we see any of cats in the next 30 days, they get marked as "Present." At the end of this month, we go through the list. Any cat that had been labeled as "Not Seen" the previous month and was still not seen this month gets moved to our "Disappeared" section and removed from the total count of cats.

This process repeats itself every month and will help us track the long term efforts in population reduction. Every cat is subject to this procedure even if we only see it once. As soon as we see any cat, it will take at least 2 months for it to be removed from the count. Using this method, any cat that may have been moved to "Disappeared" can always be reactivated as "Present" just in case they show up again.

Reading the Data 

Our list is broken down into several categories of cats. The only cats counted in the chart are ones active in the attendance procedure. Any cat that has been moved to "Disappeared" is no longer counted in the total. This allows continued updating of the chart to show active population reduction (we hope) over time.

Fixed: These are cats that we have fixed or that have been fixed by other people. They are all ear-tipped which makes tracking them much easier. They include males and females because after they're fixed, we no longer care what gender they are.

Unfixed: These are cats that have not been fixed yet. Originally, we did not separate males and females in this category because there were so many. It can be difficult to tell the gender of a cat, and the only way for sure is to catch a glimpse of a male's...parts.

Unfixed Females: Once the unfixed population got small enough, we figured that we could separate them by sex. These remaining unfixed females are the top priority targets. Every new cat we see gets put in to this category until we can catch a glimpse of any male parts. Our assumption is that new cats we see would more likely be roaming males, but we aren't about to miss a chance to target an unfixed female.

Unfixed Males: Again, once the unfixed population got small enough, we were able to track the sex of the cats. These are males that have been around since we started the process and we have clearly seen their reproductive organs.

Roaming Males: Male feral cats roam to spread their seed to other colonies. These are cats that showed up this spring and that have flashed us their balls (almost proudly sometimes). Some of these males may decide to stay in the colony and we will move them to the "Unfixed Males" category in the future. If we trap any of these roaming males, they get put into the "Fixed" category and even if they wander off after that, they are still subject to the two month attendance procedure.

The Take Away

We hope you can see that this process is not a fast one, and that is probably the most difficult part of this. We have the same desire as the other members of the community, and that is the eventual elimination of the colony. We would be lying if we said that we had never considered euthanizing some of these cats, at least to decrease the population to a more manageable size. The organizations we work with make TNR a much more affordable option, and we would be lying again if we said money wasn't a consideration. We thank them and we thank you for understanding the situation. These cats have already been sentenced to an eventual terrible death to things like disease, injuries, and predators. The true goal is to prevent any offspring they would have from enduring the same, as well as not having them continue their legacy as a community nuisance.

Feral #32

We have been trying to get this girl into a trap for some time now.  She is extremely skittish and usually leaves the yard promptly when she sees us, making this trapping exciting and educational.

"Big Eyed Marble"

We trigger the traps manually so that we can avoid catching cats that are already fixed.  We use a stick tied to a long string to prop open the door.  Because this cat rarely stays in the yard when we are outside, this was going to be tricky. We started by running the strings the full length of the yard, but she still was leaving with us there, so we ended up running the ropes through the screen door of the house and sitting and waiting inside, out of view. This worked, she came into the yard while the traps were primed!

Also of note, we tried a fish based soft food this evening thinking, "What cat doesn't like fish?" Turns out, the feral cats in this colony don't.  A number of them didn't seem interested at all. The cats that did come by were only taking a few bites and leaving. So we took a risk and went outside while she was in the yard (since she clearly wasn't attracted to the trap bait) and swapped out one of the bowls with a chicken flavor bait. This brought a couple of cats over, attracted to the new smell. After little hesitation this time, she went in and we got her!

Feral #31

A dim note to start our new trapping season, but also a case we had yet to encounter...

Warmer weather meant that we had the opportunity to try trapping again, and we caught our first for the season. This is our 31st overall.  This cat, who we had dubbed "Fence Tabby Two," had rarely been seen in the yard until the last few weeks.  He had mostly been seen on the other side of our fence only (hence his name).  He had been around more recently because it is mating season, and that always brings the unfixed males back from their extended, wandering adventures.

"Fence Tabby Two"

Unfortunately, the vet discovered a serious medical issue when we brought him in to be fixed.  Every single one of his teeth were extremely diseased.  We had noticed some bloody drool after trapping him, and we thought he had cut his mouth on the trap somehow (there are no sharp edges on the trap). The vet told us that wasn't the case. His teeth were so bad that simply eating would have caused them to bleed.  The vet described the feeling of this condition to us "like having a non-stop root canal on every single tooth at the same time...with no anesthesia."  The vet believed that euthanasia was the best choice, and we agreed.  The other options were 1) fix him, release him, and watch him die a very slow and painful death to eventual starvation, or 2) we could have ALL of his teeth extracted, resulting in the same end.  This guy got dealt a difficult hand in life being feral in the first place, and this condition made it exponentially worse.  We are glad that he is no longer suffering.

Start Your Engines

"Eh, What's up, Cat?"

There has finally been some warm, dry weather and we thought it would be a good time to get out there and see if we could trap one of our remaining targets. We thought we were going to have to wait until daylight savings time kicked in to start the project again, but Mother Nature gave us an opportunity. Unfortunately, we haven't trapped any more, but we have some interesting observations to share.

1. Cats forget.  It has been just under 4 months since our last trapping, and since we haven't been feeding out of the traps during the winter, it seems that many of the cats have forgotten how the traps work. Almost all of the cats approached the traps, sniffed at them, and paced around them trying to figure out how to get to the food. Only about half found the entrances and the other half wandered away.  As long as the weather is nice, we will fix this by doing daily feedings out of the traps again. 

2. We have significantly changed the colony since this time last year.  Last Fall (when we started keeping track), the unfixed cats significantly outnumbered fixed cats. Now, the opposite is true!
 

3. Almost all of the cats made it through Winter.  We decided on a two month verification period (two months unseen) before we officially remove a cat from the attendance roll.  Some of the cats don't frequent our yard as much as others, so this keeps us from mistakenly removing them.  We had not done an "official" attendance check since our last trapping, but during the last week, we've seen all but 3 cats. Those three still have time to show themselves though.  Additionally, we had to add a fixed(!) cat to the list that we had never seen before (complete with ear-tip, so it's probably not someone's pet).

Kitten Update

We made a post at the beginning of October about two kittens that we found on a chilly evening. We took them to the Humane Society of Boulder Valley where they were estimated to be only 4 weeks old. They are now 3 months old and the humane society has put them up on the website as available for adoption. We wanted to share their progress.

Kitten 2, now "Olive"

This poor thing is the perfect example of the hardships of feral life. She had no idea what was going on when we found her because her eyes were all glued shut with infection. We used a damp cloth to try and clean them out, but even after the gunk was gone, things still looked bad. We are sure that a lot of effort and love by the folks at the humane society went into helping this cat. We hope she finds a great forever home with warmth and safety away from the harshness of feral life.

Kitten 3, now "Rudy"

This kitten was in much better shape when we found him and took him to the humane society. We hope he also finds a great home where he can live a life away from the harshness of feral life. We know that fur patterns are random in cats, but both of these cats remind us of other tabbies in the colony.

We are always excited to report successes because we must remember the more difficult outcomes. In our time with the colony, we have found a number of deceased kittens that were either taken by disease, inaction by an inexperienced mother, or predators. These two were only 4 weeks old when we found them, and clearly weren't supposed to be out and about on their own yet. We wish them the best!

December Numbers Update

Wanted to do a quick update. With the holidays, cold weather, and lack of sunlight after work, trapping during this time of year is not happening. Luckily for us, this is not breeding season.  Perhaps it's the onset of the cold weather.  No time to mate when you're barely staying warm and trying to fatten up for the season.

With that, we've mulled over the list and updated the numbers according to our method of tracking the cats. The important numbers are: Total population is DOWN to 50 cats. Of those, 44 are fixed. We still see the six unfixed ones out there regularly, so we know they haven't disappeared, and they are still the focus.

Feral #30

Feral #30! Now that the weather is getting colder, the days shorter, and we've switched out of Daylight Savings Time, trapping on weekdays after work has become impractical. If only we could see in the dark! This will slow us down, but will not stop our progress.

"Fence Tabby One"

A few weeks ago, we experimented with microwaving wet cat food to enhance the smell. On that day, we saw new cats we'd never seen before. The extra stinky food really worked! This is one of those cats. She hasn't exactly been a regular since then, but last night, she didn't even blink an eye. We set the trap, walked away, and she bounded over the fence and went right into the trap.