What is a Community Cat? Community cats are typically the offspring of domestic cats and are primarily the result of pet owners’ abandonment or failure to spay and neuter their animals, allowing them to breed uncontrolled.
Community cats often live in “colonies” can be found anywhere from shopping centers, businesses, parks, abandoned buildings, and rural areas. They are often shy and untrusting of human contact.
Unfortunately, many people leave their pets behind when they move or just let them loose. Domestic animals do not automatically return to their natural instincts and cannot fend for themselves! Most of these cats are not spayed or neutered and a pair of breeding cats, which can have two or more litters per year, can exponentially produce 420,000 offspring over a seven-year period.
In response to this problem in the Concho Valley, PAWS has implemented a TNR (trap-neuter-release) Program. Time and again, studies have proven that trap-neuter-release is the single most successful method of stabilizing and maintaining healthy community cat colonies with the least possible cost to local governments and residents, while providing the best life for the cats themselves.
The costs for repeatedly trapping and killing feral colonies are far higher than promoting stable, non-breeding colonies in the same location. Areas emptied are soon filled by other cats, who start the breeding process all over again.
For more information about Community Cats including how to care for a colony, proper trapping, TNR and more please visit Alley Cat Allies.