October Wrap-Up

October is coming to an end and the chill of autumn is definitely upon us. Now is a good time to summarize our efforts so far as we prepare to enter colder, darker months.

National Feral Cat Day was a success and our blog post about living with the poop problem a large feral colony brings was well received! We also went door-to-door in the neighborhood with handouts containing information about community cats and how to live with them, and we let everyone know that we are working to bring the population under control. We also distributed information about this blog so that community members can better follow our progress.

The number of cats continues to fluctuate as our master list is updated and refined. This month, we realized we had one cat listed twice. We also removed a cat from the list after not seeing it for a long period of time. Then it showed up again, so we had to put it back on the list. After all of these fluctuations and others, the total number of cats in the colony has been reduced by 1 from our last update. There are now 51 cats. Of these, 44 of them are fixed, which is 86%! That is another big step up from the 77% in our Mid-October update!

With the seriously reduced number of unfixed cats in the colony, we know that trapping will become increasingly tricky. The remaining unfixed cats are also more skittish of the traps, which is why they have made it to the (almost) end.  The colder weather and shorter days will also be a factor, but we aren't discouraged! We like spending time outside and in the yard. Monitoring the cats almost happens naturally as a result of that.