Feral Cats, TNR, and the Beginnings of Project Treadstone

Those of us who are regular readers of Animal Person know that Mary Martin has put much time, work, and heart over the last several months into an effort she named Project Treadstone. She is doing wonderful and necessary work with a local feral cat colony, and this is the first of what will be multiple posts by Mary on the topic of feral cats--and what you can do to help them. -S. Ernst

Photo (taken through a fence) by Mary Martin

Several months ago I went to a meeting after dinner in downtown West Palm Beach and had to negotiate my way around a dozen feral cats, some lounging in the middle of the parking lot. There were several dozen more that I didn't see that evening, most of whom live in several small abandoned buildings in the midst of new high-rises and areas cleared for even more new construction. There were piles of kibble everywhere in addition to large bowls of clean water.

I asked around and discovered that, as is usually the case, there were pro-cat and anti-cat factions in the area. I expected that, but what I didn't expect was that the cats were being fed, but they weren't being "fixed."

Now, this wasn't for lack of knowledge. The women (and no surprise there-that those involved were women) knew that the number of animals of all kinds, absent predators and given a consistent food supply, will increase to match that food supply (at least). They also knew that trapping, neutering, and releasing the cats (known as TNR) is the only effective way to decrease feral cat populations. Catching and killing them creates a "vacuum effect," and the vacuum is soon filled by other cats or any survivors, and the cycle of birth continues. Basically, the well-meaning women at the site were actually facilitating the increase of the feral cat population, but all they needed was a gentle nudge from an outsider to get them on track.

In their defense, our local Animal Care & Control (ACC), which has a low-cost spay/neuter vehicle (the Spay Shuttle), was having technical difficulties and not offering services, and the satellite office of ACC, out in a rural part of Palm Beach County, 50 minutes from the site, wasn't open either.

I couldn't stand the thought of the cats continuing to multiply, and the women weren't going to stop feeding the cats, who had been depending on them for over a year, so I decided to learn about something completely new to me and began what I called Project Treadstone (a name I pilfered from the Bourne films). I dedicated the next couple of weeks to piecing together a team of people to begin the months-long process of positioning the colony's numbers to decrease in the coming year or two.

If you ever encounter a feral cat colony, your first order of business is to determine whether there is an existing TNR group in the area. For instance, I discovered that there are several groups of well-meaning individuals in Palm Beach County who have experience with TNR simply by using Google and by contacting Alley Cat Allies for a free list of  "Feral Friends." I worked my way through the list until I found someone who returned my call and was able to refer me to someone else who could help. I discovered that there are two groups operating in the area: one wouldn't help (they only help cats on the island Palm Beach, where I used to live, but that fact didn't gain me any sympathy), and the other one would help but didn't have any funds and was not operational. Basically, I was going to have to start a TNR effort from nearly scratch. In my next post here, I'll give you some tips on how to start your very own TNR initiative if you have to.

For now, spend some time at Alley Cat Allies, who have created an effective and efficient model for reducing the feral cat population. As they say, there's no need to reinvent the wheel.

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Check out post 2 in this series, How to Start a Trap-Neuter-Return Project for Feral Cats, and post 3, Tricky Territory on Helping Feral Cats.