The Pet Tree House - Where Pets Are Family Too : Feral The Pet Tree House - Where Pets Are Family Too : Feral
Showing posts with label Feral. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Feral. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Feral Cat Colony Crisis Pits Environmentalists Against Humane Groups


'This is unacceptable behavior for dog owners. Why is it OK for cats?' asks Grant Sizemore, a conservation biologist with the American Bird Conservancy.


UPPER MARLBORO, Md. — Marian Parker pulled her small Hyundai into the parking lot of an Upper Marlboro, Md. strip mall and started her daily mission.

In the cluttered back seat, rested an empty cat cage, several bags of dry pet food, and cases of 22-ounce 'Paws and Claws Turkey and Giblets' dinner cans.

Parker comes daily to feed a colony of about 20 feral cats.

The animals live in a trash-filled, muddy, no-man’s land in the forest behind the shopping center along the banks of the Western Branch near the busy intersection of Routes 301 and 4.

Parker and others have set out overturned plastic storage tubs filled with flea-infested straw in the muddy woods to shelter the cats. Holes are cut in the plastic for the cats to enter.

To read more on this story, click here: Feral Cat Colony Crisis Pits Environmentalists Against Humane Groups


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Thursday, January 28, 2016

Why Bringing Home a Feral Cat May Not Be a Good Idea


Every winter we see articles reminding us to bring our pets in from the cold and to make sure that outdoor animals are given the care needed to survive the elements. If you have feral cats in your neighborhood, you may even be tempted to take one home with you. While this instinct may come from a good place, doing so might not be the best thing for these wild cats.

Since many people who care for cats keep them pampered indoors, it is hard to see these furry friends living outdoors. But in fact, feral cats are often just as safe and healthy as our own house cats. It’s been shown that feral cats have equally low rates of disease as indoor cats. The lean physique of some feral cats sometimes leads people to believe that they are starving or ill, but studies find that feral cats have healthy body weights and fat distribution. After all, keep in mind that outdoor cats tend to live much more active lives than the house cats who sleep at the side of our beds.

You might be asking, but wouldn’t all cats prefer to live in an apartment and sleep next to you at night? In the case of feral cats, the answer is no. The fact is, cats that have spent their lives in the wild rarely enjoy the confines of your walls. The ASPCA currently estimates that there about 20 million free-roaming cats in this country. That figure includes a mix of truly feral cats, semi-socialized cats, and lost or abandoned cats. These cats can adapt and thrive outdoors, but when temperatures drop below freezing, there are some things that you can do to help them stay warm – without bringing them inside.

How Can You Help Feral Cats?

Volunteer

One of the best ways to help cats is volunteer with a rescue organization that helps manage feral cat colonies. Colonies are groups of cats that live in the same area and form a sort of family bond. Some volunteer groups work to provide shelter and food for colonies to help them get by. Although feral cats are usually very wary of  people, they can come to trust volunteers – or at least, trust them enough to happily accept much-needed supplies.

Make a Shelter

You can even build a feral cat shelter yourself by constructing insulated shelter boxes to help to keep them warm and dry even on the coldest and snowiest days. The video tutorial below will walk you through the necessary steps. Smaller shelters work best, as they help to recirculate cats’ own body heat. Also, be sure that cats don’t become snowed into their shelters by keeping doorways free of blowing snow and drifts.



Trap-Neuter-Release

Another way to help your community cats is to participate in Trap-Neuter-Release, or TNR, programs during the warmer months. This will help keep their populations under control in the winter. Experts debate whether TNR should be done in the winter since it requires a portion of a cat’s winter coat to be shaved and the trapping process may expose the cats to the winter elements. If TNR is attempted in the winter months, be sure that adequate shelter is provided through each step of the trapping and recovery processes.

What to Know if You Do Bring an Outdoor Cat Home

Since there are literally millions of homeless cats on the street, it can be difficult to be sure which ones are truly feral, and which ones are abandoned house cats. If you do decide to bring an outdoor cat into your home, know that introducing him or her to home life can be a lot of work, and stressful for the both of you. Cats are generally timid about being put into a new home, even if they have already lived indoors their whole lives. So imagine what it’s like to go from a life of freedom to one of walls.

If you bring a cat home, it’s very important that you make visiting a vet the first stop. Have your vet check for worms and parasites (fleas and ticks), test for ringworm and lice, Feline Immunodeficiency Virus, Feline Infectious Peritonitis, rabies and common parasites, and of course, be sure to spay or neuter as soon as possible. Most importantly, make sure that you do plenty of research beforehand. Making your cat feel comfortable can happen over a week or over a month. If your gut is telling you to bring an animal in then be prepared to put in the work.

Otherwise, keep in mind that you can help even more cats by organizing a group of volunteers to aid feral cats, while allowing them to keep their freedom.


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Saturday, December 19, 2015

Australian Officials Are Pushing to Put Domesticated Cats Under 24-Hour Lockdown


The Australian government doesn’t want outdoor cats in the outback. Government officials announced a push for cities across the land down under to ban pet cats from running wild outside. But the kittens’ well-being isn’t what Australia is concerned about: it's their prey

Australia is home to many different species of tiny mammals that also happen to be the perfect cat snacks. Feral felines have already wiped out several native species, and some conservationists think they're responsible for almost all of Australia’s small mammal extinctions since they were first brought to the continent by English settlers 200 years ago, writes Cara Giaimo for Atlas Obscura. Now, Australian officials are pushing to put domesticated cats under 24-hour lockdown in order to protect at least 28 endangered species they threaten.

"They are tsunamis of violence and death for Australia's native species," Environment Minister Greg Hunt recently told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The curfew comes on the heels of the Department of the Environment’s new feral cat plan, which also aims to exterminate 2 million feral cats in the next five years. Because the federal government doesn’t have the authority to impose a country-wide ban, officials are calling on cities and states to take action themselves. "The plan over the long term is to make this part of our culture,” Gregory Andrews, the country’s first Threatened Species Commissioner tells Nicole Hasham for the Sydney Morning Herald. “It's a journey that Australia has to go on."

Some cities and municipalities near conservation areas have already enacted bans, including several suburbs of Sydney and Canberra. But some cat lovers, including PETA and the French actress Brigitte Bardot, have taken issue with both the ban and the culling despite the government’s ecological intentions saying that extermination in the name of conservation doesn’t work.

Australia’s pet cats may soon be confined to their owners’ homes, but don't worry: the flow of cat pictures and GIFs to the internet should remain unaffected.

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Tuesday, December 8, 2015

D.C.'s Department of Energy and Environment Ignores Public Outcry, Retains Plan to Target Outdoor Cats


Despite opposition from more than 12,000 animal welfare advocates, Washington, D.C.'s Department of Energy & Environment (DOEE) continues its witch-hunt against outdoor cats. According to the agency's recently released 2015 Wildlife Action Plan, trap-neuter-return (TNR) programs in the District "will be revisited and reassessed."

It was DOEE's similarly euphemistic language that triggered intense public outcry to the draft version of the Plan earlier this year, in part because of the long history of TNR efforts in our nation's capitol.

For more than 25 years now, advocates in the District have been humanely trapping unowned, free-roaming cats, having them spayed or neutered by a licensed veterinarian, ear-tipped (the universal indicator of a sterilized community cat), vaccinated against rabies and distemper, and then (following recovery) returned to the location from which they were trapped.

Also contributing to the pushback prompted by the earlier draft was the fact that the one published paper DOEE was using to justify its plans is, as I pointed out to the agency, nothing more than agenda-driven pseudoscience (paid for by American taxpayers).



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