Feral #39

We have had our share of interesting catches, and this one is no exception. We had to convince this cat that a regular cat-carrier (not a trap) was an upscale place to eat!

"Scruffy Tuxedo" aka "Charlie Chaplin" aka "Fancy Man"

 

This beefy male has been around for some time. We originally thought that he was a long haired cat, but it turns out that he is just very large. A staggering 14 pound feral (around twice as big as most of the cats). We had our suspicions about him fitting into the traps when he first started coming into the yard. The last couple of weeks of watching him figure out how the trap worked proved it. He would get about half way in before his sides hit the walls which caused him to back out. We spent a lot of time thinking of alternative ways to get him, and our success comes in a most surprising way.

We spent our evenings putting food just inside the entrance of the trap and then staying close by. After awhile, he decided that we were not dangerous and would let us get close. We started putting food into a carrier and letting him eat while we sat there with him. We thought about different ways to secure the door after he went in and figured just being friendly would allow us to close the door by hand. Each night, we would move the food further and further into the carrier until he would go all the way in on his own. That's when we made the appointment. On the night of trapping, we thought we'd treat him with the wet food that we have. He wanted none of it. Only after we switched back to the regular crunchy food did he go into the carrier. What a snob! We gently closed the door of the carrier behind him, and now he will probably never trust us again. Lucky for us, we got what we wanted from him (his reproductive organs).  He is also the only cat to walk out of the carrier and away from us in a dignified way at release time; most cats run. 

Feral #38

This is the offspring of our last catch, Tawny Tabby. Constantly enthralled by us, we had a hard time getting this cat interested in the contents of the trap.

"Copper-Eyes Silver Tabby"

We saw this cat as a kitten earlier in the year and we tried to catch her while she could still be socialized. Unfortunately, she wouldn't come out of the utility easement. We tried a new Netting technique to catch her, but she escaped. We thought she was gone forever until she showed up a couple weeks later. Since then, she has stayed in the utility easement and hasn't wanted to come in the yard, but she is still surprisingly interested in us. We peek over the fence and she sits there and stares at us. She stretches up the fence to try and get closer to us. We imagine she thought that we were just some magic floating heads above the fence! To get her used to it, we started lowering the trap into the easement with bait food. This cat stood on top of the trap and tried to use it to get closer to our floating heads. Eventually, Tawny Tabby showed her how to get the good food in the trap. That's when we knew it was time. We made the appointment and caught this little cat.  She reunited with Mom (Tawny Tabby) just after being released, and it made our day. 

Our Two Year Feral TNR Anniversary

With September comes the second anniversary of our Trap-Neuter-Return effort with our neighborhood feral cat colony. We have to thank the wonderful people at Wild At Heart and the Humane Society of Boulder Valley. The process has proved to be intense and interesting while simultaneously tedious, time consuming, and slow. However, we are showing that TNR does work with the proper persistence.  Persistence is the key, because without it, if we quit, the colony would again increase in size over time.  

Buddy, our colony mascot, supervising the garden
from a sunny high point the day before he disappeared
for good. We suspect that curiosity may have gotten
the best of him.

We've experimented with a lot of traps and tools. We've tracked the population and watched it fluctuate both up and down. We've done our best to record all of the data that we can. Call it a scientific approach to feral cat management. We've been fortunate to find homes for some kittens while they were young enough and unfortunate to find the remains of the others that nature deemed not so lucky. We have never found a dead adult cat and we often ponder about what happened to them when they do disappear. The population is currently half of what it was at its highest point and we can only imagine in dread at the large number of cats there would be if we had not started this project two years ago. We are still optimistic that our efforts will someday lead to a humane end for the entire colony.

"I was told there would be pizza and beer."

We should also say that we have been pleasantly entertained by the cats (at times). It is important to remember that these animals did not have a choice in their current situation. We are witness to the behaviors that have bound Felis Catus to human societies for thousands of years. We choose to observe them in this environment only because there are there, just as they observe us because we are here. Their intra-colony relationships and hierarchies can be quite interesting, and their silly behaviors provide some good laughs. They are ultimately doomed to the same fate as their ancestors before them, just as we are. We can only do our part to prevent their offspring from that fate by directly preventing the creation of offspring while, at the same time, not punishing these cats for simply existing.

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"What have you done to me!? Why is the room spinning!?"

"What do you guys think these are for?" This is the day we bought our traps.

"Thank you Giant Bipedal Mammals. I will spare you...for now."

Feral #37

This was one of quickest captures ever.  It took less than 5 minutes.

"Tawny Tabby"

This brown tabby cat has been in the yard a few times, but we mostly see her in our utility easement. The first time we spotted her, she had a small kitten in tow. We attempted to get the kitten, came really close, but it ended up escaping. Since we knew this cat was still nursing, we decided to wait and let her become more comfortable around us so we could trap her easily once the kitten was fully weaned.  This worked.  We lowered the trap over the fence into the utility easement with some wet food and she went right in! Unfortunately, the kitten is much too old for the Humane Society to socialize now, so we'll have to fix it eventually.  Since it is around most of the time and is clearly interested in us, it shouldn't be too difficult.  We just need to spend a bit more time getting it used to the trap.  As a side note, the kitten came over to greet 'mom' when we released her.  It was super cute.

Feral #36 and Numbers Update

This catch is particularly exciting! This cat has been pregnant many times and we're glad she won't have any more kittens after today.

"The Visitor"

"The Visitor" is an interesting case. She has been present since the beginning of this project, but she has been the most elusive and stubborn cat we've come across. At one point, we determined that she was not a true member of the colony and this probably contributed to her behavior. She would venture through the yard without stopping. We would put traps in her usual route hoping to get her, but to no avail. Members of the colony seemed to strangely tolerate her, as member cats chase away other cats that aren't part of the colony, but not her. 

She is the mother of the kittens from our last post. In the past, we have seen her slowly grow to full term pregnancy, disappear for a few days, and come back not pregnant. However, we never saw her with kittens. This time was different. After giving birth, she was around all day every day. After about 5 weeks, we finally saw the kittens and were able to get them to the humane society for socializing and adoption.

Now that we knew she wasn't nursing any more, we set out on a mission to trap her. We were nervous that after we took the kittens, she would revert to her wandering ways. She had never been in a trap and couldn't figure it out, though she clearly wanted the food we put in it. Eventually, the drop trap we sometimes use turned out to be the winning ticket! Her legacy as a mother can finally end and she can live out the rest of her life without having to deal with the relentless pursuit of unfixed males and the inevitable pregnancies & kitten rearing that follow.

Numbers Update

It's been few months since the last numbers update. There was a slight uptick in the spring while other unfixed male cats were roaming through the area regularly, but there has been a slight downward trend in population this year overall. The colony has had an overall downward trend in population since we started this project twenty-one months ago, and it is almost half the size it was a year ago. For more information about how these numbers are generated, please check out our post about our Procedural Population Tracking.

Fresh Feral Kittens #5 - 8, Straight from the Garden

Kitten season is here and we have been on the lookout, keeping our eyes and ears open. We try to find any kittens we can (as early as we can) and get them to the local humane society to help them avoid the feral life.

There is an unfixed female that we have been trying to catch for the longest time. She comes through the yard, but never stops. We've placed traps in her usual path with moist food, but that isn't enough to distract her from whatever mission she is on. We could tell by her size that she was pregnant, and then she didn't show up for a couple of days. When she did come back, she wasn't pregnant any more. This isn't the first time she's pulled this over on us. However, we have never actually seen her with kittens in tow. We assumed it would be the same this time around.

This is when things changed. She was suddenly around all day, every day. We knew this was odd, and while we didn't want to jinx the possibility, we assumed the kittens must be close by. The weather was really nice and then changed to cold & snowy for a few days. On Saturday, the weather warmed up and the sun came out. That's when we saw them. They are about 5 weeks old and this was probably their first day outside of the den (under a pile of brush). They were laying in a group, enjoying the sunshine. Mom is skittish of us, of course, and ran off when we approached. However, the kittens just looked at us and didn't fuss one bit while we picked them up. We took them to the local humane society where they tend to have plenty of foster moms at this time of year. They will be socialized and once old enough and friendly enough, they will be great candidates for adoption.

Feral #35

It was unseasonably warm again this week which made for another perfect weekend to wrangle another new feral.

"Skulking Small Black with No Name"

This is another black cat with no distinguishing features. We have only seen her in the yard a couple of times and suspect she is part a litter from last summer; probably a sibling of the kitten we found in August. She came into the yard keeping herself low to the ground, investigated the traps and skulked away. She explored more parts of the yard and ended up back at the trap. After a little more investigation, she decided it was safe enough and went in to eat. An easy catch!

Feral #34 and 2017 Start-up Statistics

It has been unseasonably warm recently and the cats have really been out and about (enjoying the end of mating season). We thought we'd take a shot at trapping and ended up getting lucky, leading to this Valentine's Day sterilization! 

"Slender Blue Blind Eye"

This cat is another one of the extremely skittish cats in the colony and is blind in his left eye. We have known about him for some time, but he does not come in the yard if we are there. So after some time watching the traps outside, we decided to switch up our plan and run the trap trigger strings inside and watch from the back door. We had some of the stinky wet food in the traps, so it didn't take long for him to finally come into the yard. He went right in the trap, but the rope we use to trigger the trap broke when we pulled it; such a feeling of defeat. We went out, scared him out of the trap and re-tied the rope. We didn't expect him to come back, but he must have really liked the food. Within a few minutes, he was back and we got him!

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Tracking the cats during the cold months is difficult because they are hiding, trying to stay warm. Since it has been so warm recently, we've been able to update our tracking numbers to a point where we feel comfortable marking today as the starting point for 2017. March and April are technically the snowiest months here, but if current trends are any indication, that won't matter much this year. You can read more about our tracking method by clicking here.