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.