Gatti Liberi, the Free Cats of Italy

Happy National Feral Cat Day!  In honor of the day, I’d like to share what I consider to be a great success story in the management and humane treatment of feral cats.  

Triestine Gatti Liberi.

Every couple of years, for quite awhile now, I’ve visited Trieste, Italy for work.  I’ve been impressed by the decrease in the number of feral cats roaming the city during that time, and the increase in the number of fixed cats (made obvious by the ear-tipping).  My supervisor, who has visited Trieste for many more years than I have (and lived there for awhile), even told me on my first visit that the number cats used to be much greater, so clearly something had changed.  On my last visit, I asked about this and was told that the decrease was essentially due to efforts of local organizations, and one was mentioned as being very important to this effort, the Associazione Il Gattile, founded in 1996.  Lacking time, my inquiry ended there, but this post gave me an excuse to examine it further. With that said, I wrote Il Gattile recently, and would like to give them a very big thank-you for providing me with more information for this post!

My dinner companion on an empty restaurant patio the first ever evening I spent in Trieste.  Back then I had no idea what the ear tip meant.

Starting with the basics… stray cats in Italy are not called “feral” cats, they are “free” cats.  Free as in freely living, liberated, not no-cost and free for the taking. I find that about 25% of the cats I’ve encountered in colonies are not truly feral by our standards either.  Some are quite friendly, and happy to associate with you while you visit their park. Some are more suspicious of strangers, but warm up if you offer food, and I imagine they are completely socialized to their caregiver.  Most of the photos I've put in this post suggest most of the cats are really friendly with strangers, but that's just because it's hard to photograph a cat that is quickly running away from you.

This local forest dwelling cat looks truly free. 

Gatti liberi are protected by Italian law, specifically by an animal welfare law that was passed in 1991, making Italy the first no-kill country in the world.  This law spells out a number of rules for free cat colonies and their gattara/o (their caregivers). Apparently, this law will also be updated soon to include more companion animals (not just cats and dogs) and stronger animal welfare regulation.  

"I'm king of this jungle."

By law, gatti liberi have the right to stay in any location they’ve claimed as their home.  Caregivers are supposed to spay/neuter them, register them, maintain their health (e.g. take them to a vet when necessary), and feed them, while respecting the location of the colony and other people (e.g., cats are to be fed at regular times, in a sheltered location that is not under a car, and trays are not to be left behind).

A very friendly gatti liberi enjoying a good neck scratch.

There are over 630 feline colonies registered in the Province of Trieste.  I can’t help but imagine 630 colonies that are the size of the one we work with, and gasping at that number (that would be a lot of cats!), but I know that the one we work with is not typical by any means.  In my limited experience in Trieste, a colony is usually no more than a few cats in a park, near a particular group of houses, or by an apartment complex.  

Another park dweller, enjoying the fresh air.  This was one of the few cats I saw on my last visit without an ear tip.  I tried to talk to its caregiver, who I ran into a few days later, since I wanted to ask about the cats, but only managed to say "hello" and "pretty cat" (given my exceptionally limited Italian and her not speaking English). 

The obvious population decrease, even given the number of registered colonies, has been due to spay/neuter campaigns and changes in animal welfare education.  The Associazione Il Gattile spays/neuters about 1000 cats per year, finds home for about 400 orphaned, abandoned, or lost cat/kittens per year, and their volunteers have participated in hundreds of spay/neuter campaign trappings.  Other vets in the province also provide spay/neuter services to help control the free cat population. Il Gattile will also provide shelter to free cats that in danger because their home is or has become unsuitable (e.g. living near a busy road) or there is a health threat.

Construction zone cat.

Education, the support of the Italian government, local organizations, and a well-ingrained cat culture has clearly led to healthy, well-cared for cat colonies in the Trieste region, and the work to keep the population of cats healthy and in check is to be commended.  

Il Parco del Castello di Miramare and one of its many residents.

Our nation could perhaps learn from this example.  We may not have the same cat culture, but with more education and will, perhaps we’d see fewer poorly managed, unhealthy colonies, and fewer abandoned cats to begin with.  Personally, we cannot condone letting cats be outdoors on purpose, unless leashed. They are subject to predatory wildlife, roads, and malicious people, and they certainly do kill birds (we have none within at least a 1 block radius, and any that mistakenly land here quickly end up dead and become a feral cat toy).  Plus, letting your cat or dog outside off-leash is illegal in our town, and many others, to start. However, when confronted with an unadoptable feral colony that didn’t ask to be there in the first place, we can condone healthy (fed, sheltered, fixed, and vaccinated), zero birth rate colonies.  We don’t like the "management" alternatives.  Kudos to Alley Cat Allies for fueling the U.S. cat revolution and organizing National Feral Cat Day.  We hope their influence continues to spread!

Another gratuitous park cat photo.

And another.

And to close, one of the many resident cats on the not too far away island of Burano, Italy.

 

Feral #33

This late season catch was an interesting one. The cats in the colony continue to surprise us.

"Shaky Legs"

This cat has difficulty walking. We aren't sure if it's a physical problem or neurological problem, but he has very little control over his back legs. His back half falls over and his legs are shaky. This condition seems to prevent him from jumping, so he has never actually been in our yard. We spotted him in the utility easement on the other side of the fence and have been tossing him food to encourage his presence. We devised a way to lower the trap over the fence and it didn't take long for him to figure out how to go in it.

This condition could be considered a side effect of a feral life. Had he been born into a home with a loving owner, a physical deficiency may have been corrected early on or a neurological issue might have been treated with medication. This condition does not seem to affect his quality of life in the colony, as he seems to be in good health otherwise and can move quickly when necessary.

However, his disability may have placed him at the bottom of the colony hierarchy. We thought this cat was a female when we first saw it because it was being mated with by one of the large males. Now that we know it is a boy, a quick Google search tells us that male cats will mate with anything if there aren't any unfixed females around. It may have also been a show of dominance in general as there were several cats watching this happen.

One Year Update!

It has been just over a year since we started this venture, a perfect time for an update. It has been a bit of a slow year, but the information is still interesting!

Then and Now, this is the 9th cat that we trapped.  She is super curious, but most definitely feral.

Over the course of the summer, we have seen a significant drop in population. There were very few kittens this year because so many of the cats are fixed. These kittens would have naturally replaced any cats that died this year and kept the population numbers steady. Instead, the kittens that were found were brought to the humane society early enough to be socialized.

Click Here for more details about our methods for tracking population.

As we predicted, a number of the roaming males have disappeared since there are few unfixed females in the colony. As it currently stands, they will all be taken off the list if we don't see them again before the middle of next month.

Some of the fixed cats that have disappeared were smaller and may have been picked off by a predator. We spoke with some employees at a Birds of Prey Rescue & Rehabilitation facility who told us that a large hawk or great horned owl could easily carry off an 8 pound cat. There are many cats in the colony that we believe to weigh less than or equal to this.

It is also possible that members of the neighborhood have made the cats disappear by either using inhumane methods (which we really don't want to think about), or by trapping & relocating them out of the neighborhood. The different materials that we've read on humane relocation all agree that it takes weeks of time and effort to do it right. Relocating a feral cat as a barn cat will most likely be a slow death sentence if not done properly. Most cats will leave the new location as soon as they are released and will wander aimlessly searching for their old home.

Disease and old age are another theory, however the cats that have disappeared were in good health, young, and vaccinated. We have also not seen any cats showing physical signs of disease (which is something the local Animal Control asked us to watch for).

These different scenarios cover the potential possibilities for the population decrease (the ultimate goal of TNR). We will only know for sure if we ever find deceased cats ourselves, and (un)fortunately, we have not found any. So for now we just keep tracking the numbers. If the current trend continues, the colony's population at the end of the year could be as low as half of the number it was last year.

Kitten #4

We know the blog has been pretty silent, but that's because there aren't many cats left to fix, and those that remain have proven to be incredibly difficult to trap. That left us wondering if we were going to find any kittens this year, especially since we know of only 2 unfixed females. Our neighbors told us that they found one kitten in the Spring, but this is the first one we've found.

Kitten 4

We found this kitten yesterday evening all alone in the utility easement after hearing its little cries. This is the healthiest kitten we have ever found in the colony. Clean butt, no gooey eyes, attentive, big appetite, and it took a healthy poop. It was friendly and wanted to socialize with us. After a bit of play, we put it in a pet carrier with a pee-pad, a towel, and some wet food for the night. Then we took it to the humane society in the morning. It is too young to adopt out immediately, but after several more weeks, the folks at the humane society say they shouldn't have a problem finding a home for it.

We are glad this kitten won't have to grow up in the tough conditions that come with being a feral cat... and we don't have to pick up all the poop it would potentially leave in the yard!

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).