I believe...

I believe in trap/neuter/return.

However, I come from a traditional animal control background, as well as wildlife control, and there is a stubborn part of me that is a skeptic. I believe that TNR works if it is managed aggressively...but really, how many people do it right?

If you don't get every cat, and for some reason the caretaker walks away, all it takes is one unfixed cat, and it's all going to go right down the tube, drowned in new kittens.

But consistently, colonies come along that prove the skeptic in me wrong.

It happened again today.

A friend of mine was injured this week. He was found by a farmer who had been plowing fields. Two years ago, at the request of the local SPCA, I had captured 32 cats for that same farmer for spay/neuter. There were a few cats still left unfixed when the access to free spay/neuter ran out. I meant to return the next year to fix more and remove any new cats and kittens. But my life intervened, and I put it on hold, meaning again and again to get out there.

When I was told this farmer had, in essence, saved my friend's life, I drove out today, determined to take my punishment for delaying a return trip. I was going to have to start all over again, I was sure. There would be kittens in the hay (actually straw) stacks, and new cats galore.

I was sure of this. I went prepared to come home with kittens in tow. Not only that, the previous cats would all need rabies boosters.

But this farmer had stopped to help a person in need. It is possible other people may have gone right by. He deserved a kitten-free barn. That was what I had promised him two years ago.

When I drove up to the huge hay barn, no one was around, so I took it upon myself to trespass.


This fellow greeted me, curled up the in loose straw just inside the door. Two other cats were startled into running. They were all sporting left eartips that meant they had been fixed and vaccinated.


In fall, this vast barn is filled with hay and straw. These stacks have nooks and crannies that are perfect for cats to hide in and stay protected and warm. The bales are loaded up on tractor trailers (and yes, the whole tractor and trailer can actually be driven into this barn) and shipped out for sale over the winter.


At this time of year, while there are still thousands of bales left, the barn is mostly empty. It is large enough to store the haying equipment.


In this shot, I'm standing in the same place as the previous shot, but looking left. The tires on that tractor are taller than I am. Down at the end is the remaining hay from last growing season. And there is a lot of hay down there. This barn is vast.


The windows and doors remain open to provide ventilation so the straw dries out. The cats leap out the back windows to hunt the hundreds and hundreds of acres of field. I leaned out to take a look around, and saw five cats working the land. I zoomed in on this fellow.

Look! Left eartip. So far every single cat was tipped.

I walked back to the hay, and cats who had been tip-toeing across the tops of the bales melted away into the darkness. When I came outside, this guy was caught trying to zip away from me, not realizing I was on my way out in the same direction

I remember him! He had been a kitten-of-the-year at the time I had been trapping. Most of the cats were solid grays, blacks, and tigers, but four had been gray/white and black/white.

When I got back to my truck, I noticed there was a truck parked next to me. I had expected that once someone noticed me poking around, someone would show up. I went to the egg packaging room and yelled a hello. The farmer cheerfully said "Hi," and I went on in. He was opening canned cat food for the cats.

Someone has been eating pretty well.

He talked to me about the cats who were milling around, waiting for their dinner. The tubby black female above had been hugely pregnant when I'd been there last, and had her kittens in a bare cardboard box before I could catch her. I took the kittens, and got her fixed. The cat who had been hopping on three legs was still around and was now walking fine.

The farmer was pretty sure they still had most of the cats they'd had two years ago. A few had disappeared, but not many.

"You still think you still have around 30 cats?"

He said yes, he was sure.

"And how many kittens since then?"

None.

NONE.

Not a single kitten in two years, since almost all the cats were fixed. "And we've had two silver tabbies dropped off," he said, "But they haven't had any kittens."

So instead of facing a spring of fixing a failed TNR colony, bottle-raising kittens that I fished out of the haybales, all I had to do was capture cats for revaccination (which could be done inside the trap, in the parking lot at my vets) and get the two new cats fixed.

That's it.

TNR had worked far beyond my own expectations.

I then mentioned to the farmer that the real reason I had gotten my butt in gear to stop by after all this time, was because he had helped my friend. I shook his hand and thanked him for all he had done, and assured him I would be back to start catching cats.

He seemed pleased and surprised that the world was so small and things like this came full circle.

And so was I.