World Spay Day: Caring for Feral Cats
Posted by Armarkat on 31st Jan 2025
Did you know that a single unspayed female cat giving birth to a litter of four, with her offspring each having four kittens and their descendents continuing to have four kittens each, can lead to a population of over one million cats in just ten years? Feral cats face significant challenges in surviving on their own, while limited access to spay/neuter services and food makes their situation even more difficult. To explore how spay and neuter efforts improve the lives of feral cats and benefit their communities, we spoke with Karen Kraus, Executive Director of the Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon (FCCO). Over the past 30 years, FCCO has provided care for more than 140,000 cats, making an incredible impact on feline welfare.
What is FCCO’s mission and what does it mean to you?
Our mission is to improve the welfare and reduce the population of feral and stray cats through spay/neuter and education. The need is far greater than any individual can provide and any one group. It's going to take all of us doing everything we can.
And it's truly an honor that we're from Portland. Twenty-four counties brought cats to us last year from across Southwest Washington and Oregon. And that's just really such a sign of the need and the compassion in our community to help these cats, right?
So, I remain very dedicated to this mission and to our organization because it's helping both people and the animals. I originally come from Wisconsin and I volunteered at a shelter and we would give tours to donors and they had a chalkboard in the community room. It listed outcomes for animals that entered the shelter, and we could share those numbers with donors. And there was just a line item on there for feral cats. And it was straight across the board euthanized. And I didn't know that there was an alternative.
And fast forward a few years, I moved to Oregon and I was volunteering with some other animal welfare groups. And there was news coverage of a feral cat spay/neuter clinic, a trap neuter return clinic. And I just stared at my television. It was like, ‘Oh my gosh, there's another way to help these cats.’ And I signed up to volunteer.
Veterinarians founded our program, but I got involved very early on. So I've been involved for 30 years, motivated by realizing that the animals need to have an option and people care deeply about feral cats. It's important to stay focused, and that focus has kept us very clearly on services that will improve the cat's life. So, the cats are going to get flea medication when they're with us. They'll get the rabies vaccine, their distemper vaccine, fluids if they're dehydrated, earmite treatment, If we see earmites, dewormer. We want to make sure that we're improving their life beyond just the spay or neuter. But that spay or neuter improves their life so dramatically, right? The continual breeding cycle is incredibly difficult on the females and then the males are out free roaming for that opportunity and they're fighting, and it's not great for them either. So, their life is greatly improved by being neutered as well.
What makes a cat ‘feral’?
An untamed cat is a feral cat. A scared cat may be just a scared house cat–that doesn't mean they're a feral cat. We like to say that cats fall on a spectrum from very friendly to very feral, and they can be anywhere on that spectrum and they can move. It's not a stuck position.
A true feral cat is an untamed domestic house cat who didn't have any human connection, born to a mom that was probably feral and instilled that fear into the kittens. And so little feral kittens will come out hissing at humans. I mean they're born feral. However, when you get to them young enough, under eight weeks, you can socialize them, you can break that pattern and they'll have a life of being socialized friendly house cats.
But if you wait, they get a little older, it's harder to truly set the right path for that cat. So, they're not going to warm up to people the older they get. However, that's not across the board. It's going to be individualized to the cat because there's personalities that they have, there's different experiences. A second generation feral female is going to have their kittens be more feral. The more generations of feral, the deeper that mistrust of people becomes. So what is feral for the majority of people reading this, for the majority of people involved, it's probably a stray cat who got outside, had a litter of kittens and the kittens weren't overly socialized and they're feral.
On the other hand, a stray cat is not very clearly defined either. And again, people will say, ‘I've got a stray cat,’ but it's their pet. It is a lost pet kitty who's outside perfectly friendly, might be a little scared, right? They get outdoors, it's scary. They can get a little more fearful, but they'll come around to people more quickly.
How do feral cat colonies form?
The colonies typically start with a female and her offspring. And maybe it could be started with a couple of abandoned or lost cats, too. But it's typically a female and her offspring. She's at a location because there's a food source, and she has that litter of kittens.
And if they're not tamed when they're young, whoever's feeding them might be like, ‘All right, I'm willing to feed mom and her four kittens.’ Then they're feeding five cats and it would be ideal to get them spayed or neutered to keep them at five because those five are going to multiply very quickly when they're able to. So, that's where your colony typically starts.
What is the ‘Feral Cat Equation’?
A colony tends to have the females and their litters congregating and staying, and it grows that way. There's a lot there when cats are fed–they are healthier and females in our climate can have up to three litters a year. So, it's pretty tough on a female. Also, there is a pretty big death rate for kittens surviving.
In our equation, the female is pregnant to begin with. One cat, and she has a litter of four, that's it. And her litter of four, each one of them has a litter of four, and every one of those four has their four. They do that over 10 years. That is trying to factor in the fact that not every kitten is going to survive. Many cats outdoors will have more than one litter. And that's what happens in the cat population. If left unchecked, it would be exponential growth.
Do feral cats need human help to survive?
There's a misconception that cats can fend for themselves. All domesticated house cats are one species. And then it's a matter of their temperament if they're socialized to people or not. But feral or not, they're the same animal.
A cat is a cat is a cat, right? What people need to realize is how we treat them. So often there's a misconception of, you know, that they can fend for themselves. We domesticated cats. Some might argue they domesticated us. But regardless, they're a domesticated animal. Domestication is a promise from humans that we will look after that animal. When we don't, we've broken that promise.
Cats have generations of relying on humans for food sources. Can they hunt? Yes. Do they hunt? Yes. Can they get some food out there? Some of them. I've had plenty of cats who wouldn't think of hunting. But they're not going to thrive on their own without our help. Our promise is to take care of them. And so [feral cats] seek out resources and they'll scavenge. Cats will show up where there's a food source, maybe behind a restaurant or a grocery store or even a garbage can at a park that has reliable scraps that they can get. They do not thrive. They're not able to survive by just hunting for themselves for very long.
It's about helping the ones that are already out there, and it's not turning a blind eye and thinking it's somebody else's problem or that they'll just go away. Really, we could look at the feral and stray cats as being unfortunate situations because at some point in their life that connection to humans was broken. It was most probably broken on the human side. They're at a disadvantage and they not only need our care and compassion, but they deserve it. The number one pet in America deserves our compassion and help.
Can you describe the trap-neuter-return process?
Trap-neuter-return means trapping a cat, getting them spayed or neutered, most likely also vaccinated, maybe some other services, and returned to where they're being fed.
However, it's not practiced the same within all groups [of cat assistance organizations]. Often, it's often not practiced the same way because we all have little nuances and people that are reading this are going to live in an area where they might have to do it a little differently than we do based on veterinary resources or not enough traps in the area or not enough people to help trap. There's lots of parts and pieces to it, but what we provide is called Caregiver Based TNR. We talk with the caregivers [the people feeding the feral cats]. We have live traps. We loan them out for folks to trap the cats and bring them into us. We are the spay neuter clinic. We're spaying, neutering, vaccinating, and providing many other services.
What is involved in trapping a feral cat?
The caregiver will call us, pick up the traps, bring the cats to us, and then [after spaying/neutering] return the cats to where they're being fed and return the traps to us. Those traps then go right back out to somebody else needing to do the same thing. We're continually training and helping people trap their own cats. It's very sustainable and we appreciate the folks who are out there and have a skill in this.
A lot of folks are afraid of the trapping portion. They're a little reluctant. They've built a relationship as a caregiver, as the person feeding the cats. They feel there's trust and there's a bond, even if they can't touch them. And now we're like, ‘You need to bring this wire cage and put it in your backyard and catch these cats.’ And that just has a bad connotation, right? Trapping feels very aggressive to many people and it's scary.
So, what we do is we work to take that fear away because using a trap to catch the cat is safer for the cat and it's safer for the individual. You're not going to get bitten or scratched and a cat bite and a cat scratch are very dangerous. It's important to be safe when you're getting kitties. And if you kind of have a relationship and you think you can maybe get them to go into a carrier and you reach out and you grab the cat and you try to push them into a carrier, you've seen it with your own cat, right? I just think of how it is with house cats–that in itself is hard enough. But now you have a feral kitty who you've created trust with. You're now doing something scary and now the cat's going to fear you. However, they're not going to fear you when the trap catches them. The trap caught them. You did not. So, you don't break the bond as much.
You're not going to get injured. The cat's not going to get injured. We walk people through it and it's very successful. It also helps our staff, of course, because when the cats are all in the same trap, our services all the cats receive the same services. It's just easier when they're in a trap. We don't have to handle them while they're awake, which is less stressful for the cat and safer for our staff. So, all the way around, traps are a better approach. I would encourage people to remember that traps can't be left unattended. You can't just put a trap out and then like go check on it the next day. That is not humane. You need to watch that trap. If you're actively trapping, we've got ways, we've got information on our website that show people how to trap a cat so that they're used to the trap in advance.
So, you put the trap out, you don't set it, but you put the food near it, kind of bang on the trap, get the cat used to hearing it, smelling it, being around it, and then slowly move the food into the trap. Then, the day you're going to trap, then you set the trapping mechanism and the cat will go in, as it will be acclimated. They won't think much about it and go into that trap, but you got to watch the traps. And you know, we definitely encourage people to not just set one and walk away. So, trap-neuter-return in our process is caregiver-based in that the person feeding the cats is the one bringing them in, is then going to return the cats to where they're being fed, and those cats will not have kittens.
What kinds of community participation have you seen?
It touches our hearts when we see folks who drive hours to come to our clinic. That's a dedication that is a commitment because they probably took that day off of work and they maybe had to borrow a vehicle because they're going to transport hundreds of cats in some cases. It's always so powerful to see that amount of care we have. We had somebody actually committed to helping a community in Washington. This was several years ago. And they got a team of people and they went and they tried to help all the cats in their area. And they brought us hundreds of cats from an area in Washington state. It was incredible to see the amount of work that a team could put together to bring in well over 100 cats.
However, I don't want to underestimate the folks who bring in the typical colony that is going to be five to seven cats. That alone is a lot. To feed that many alone every day, to care about, worry about, have shelter for, and then to commit to helping them and getting them.
There isn't a caregiver out there who asked for those cats, but they opened their heart and they are taking the time. They can't go on vacation without someone looking after the cats. It's definitely a commitment. That's why we really feel it's so important to get that word out about the importance of spaying and neutering because it’s going to take all of us working together, helping the pet cats before they can get outside and become feral or stray.
We just can't really thank people enough for opening their hearts and putting a bowl of food out and helping the cats, realizing that one will become many and that they're taking the hard step. They're helping those cats 365 days a year!
How do the rising costs of veterinary care affect spay/neuter for organizations and cat owners? How are you working with veterinarians to help address this issue?
Most people that are helping animals are seeing that there's an increase in veterinary costs and that there's less access or less affordable access to veterinary services. We have seen since the pandemic an absolute increase in the need for our services and hear from [other cat rescue organizations] that they're in a similar situation. So, we understand that in order to more broadly work on helping feral cats, one person can't solve this, one organization can't solve this, but we need to reach out and build a network.
We need to raise awareness about the importance of spaying and neutering, particularly in the veterinary community who hasn't had to look at it for a long time because between shelters and spay/neuter clinics, we really had a lot of services available to the community prior to the pandemic. That level of service in some cities is no longer available. Some spay/neuter clinics have closed, some have reduced hours, reduced capacity, and a lot of that has to do with the challenges of finding veterinary staff.
There's a veterinary shortage and we’re looking at ways that we can improve the situation because that will improve the health and well-being of our animals. We understand that for some folks, they're going to read this and they're going to think, ‘Well, we used to have access, but we can't come up with whatever the costs might be today,’ and we want them to know that they're not alone.
We are kicking off this year a training program for veterinarians, which is called High Quality High Volume Spay Neuter (HQHVSN). It is a method for safely spaying and neutering cats more quickly. What we hope to do through this program is train more veterinarians, give them the skill set to be able to spay and neuter more cats in their clinics, which will spread out the base of services available in our community. We are working with United Spay Alliance, an organization who is nationally working to get more veterinarians engaged in helping with spay/neuter.
Because spay/neuter has been underwritten for so long by all of us in animal welfare being able to provide it at reduced costs, even our program providing it for a donation, it’s still not free for us to provide it. Spay/neuter is a serious surgery that takes skills to safely perform, especially to perform multiple times in one day.
For a long time, veterinarians didn't see a lot of cats that needed to be spayed or neutered because if you adopt from a shelter, they're already altered or, or people would go and they could get into a low cost clinic in their area and get their cats spayed or neutered.
However, it is one of those areas that we do want to keep affordable. Otherwise, people won't be able to do it and it'll be a luxury, not something that people can’t do even though they know it's important. So again, it’s important to train more veterinarians to do spay/neuter, and so they can do more of them and do them quicker.
What environmental efforts is FCCO active in?
We are one of the few cat programs in the nation that partners closely with a bird organization, and we have an education outreach campaign called Cats Safe at Home. The more cats that stay home, the fewer stray cats and the less predation there will be on wildlife.
Our partnership with the Bird Alliance of Oregon and the Bird Conservation of Oregon has been going on for many, many, many years. And our goal is to help keep pet cats at home, meaning not free roaming out in the environment. It's better for cats. It's better for wildlife. Using catios helps give adventure to cats, enriching indoor cats' lives.
The reality is that birds are in decline and cat populations are in a growth situation. You have a scarcity and an abundance and a kind of colliding at that point, needing to really hear each other in this very divided world that we live in. We're so grateful that here in Portland, we really have taken that space to say cats really don't belong everywhere. We need space for biodiversity.
Most people are cat and bird lovers. So, being able to be in that middle ground and show people some things that can make a direct impact for both their cat's well-being and for wildlife is fantastic.
How can cat lovers help FCCO?
Spaying and neutering and having incredible doctors to do those services is not cheap. That's where we get that support from the community to be able to keep our services available through donations.
For people that are feeding feral and stray cats and bringing them to us, we do provide some food and you can see that in some cases people are feeding a lot of cats, it gets expensive. Food costs have gone up as well. But the cats definitely do need that support.
Donors who are interested in providing kind donations can absolutely look at the wish list and see what they can purchase for us. We always encourage you to let us know that you got it because Amazon doesn't always tell us. Of course, cash donations go to making sure that our service remains affordable and available to everyone that we can help.
Wish list: https://www.feralcats.com/wish
Website: https://www.feralcats.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FeralCatCoalitionofOregon
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/feralcatsor/
X page: https://x.com/FeralCatsOR
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-feral-cat-coalition-of-oregon/
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