Does TNR work?

(Note, for those who come for the photos, there is a new kitten photo below this post)

I will need to get a full copy of this study.

To use a mathematical model to determine whether or not TNR is successful, one needs to define success. If you similarly modeled removal, I would make an educated guess that it would also "fail" as a cat control method.

If you claim that TNR fails based on this model, you might also say that professional wildlife control fails when it removes a raccoon or two from a property, or installs a chimney cap on a house. Even though the problem is solved at that site and will never occur again, a raccoon might move into a chimney down the street, and the wildlife control business will never resolve the problem of all raccoons in all chimney on all streets.

Did wildlife control "fail?" The landowner who no longer has a raccoon problem would say that it in fact succeeded. To extrapolate success to the entire street would be absurd.

The fact is, in most locations where I have managed cats, the landowner no longer has the cat problem they were complaining about, and they now have few or no cats when before they had scads. Should we stop practicing TNR because fixing all the cats at Barn A will not magically fix the problem at Barn B? The farmer at Barn A would scream "No!"

His cat problem is fixed!

It is time researchers, biologists, and feral cat people accept the reality that feral cat issues need to be examined on a colony-by-colony basis. Most actual feral cat caretakers view TNR in this manner (they get all the cats at X colony before they consider X colony done). Researchers and large shelters or spay/neuter programs do not. They talk about total numbers of cats fixed across a wide region and despair that "the problem will never entirely go away" if it continues at the present rate.

However, TNR is not occurring in a vacuum. At the same time that street cats are being fixed, shelters are moving toward the day that every shelter pet is fixed when it goes out the door. Veterinarians are accepting that they can be a part of the solution and are reducing spay/neuter costs. Hopefully, local lawmakers will soon note that the major source of problem unwanted animals is coming from backyard breeders and will regulation that trade (right now, backyard breeders slip through the cracks of most state laws). All these changes together are what will bring success in pet population management.

But TNR, viewed as "numbers only" won't fix the cat problem alone.

Suppose we have three colonies of 30 cats each and we fix 30 cats. We can fix 30 cats at one site, and monitor that site for new cats. (And, of course, remove kittens and friendly cats for an overall reduction in on-site felines). The cat problem at that site will be solved. Success!

Or we can fix 10 cats in each colony. Cats will continue breeding, and not one of the three problems will be resolved. All will continue to breed and grow, and kittens will still be a time consuming and costly problem. Failure!

The number of cats did not determine success or failure. The management method did.

Groups that provide spay/neuter or funding for spay/neuter should be providing education and guidance about fixing the entire colony, and the requirement of ongoing monitoring. A colony that gets fixed needs to stay fixed. Money poured into spay/neuter at sites where the colony is not being properly managed is money going down a black hole.

The pest management profession has learned that just going in and spraying for bugs doesn't solve a bug problem. Cracks need to be filled, food sources need to be removed. When a raccoon is removed, a chimney cap needs to be installed to prevent a reoccurance. This is called Integrated Pest Management. IPM uses a site by site methodology and results in successful resolution of pest problems.

Here is an interesting link I found about IPM in an archival library. Wouldn't it be absurd for this library to say "why bother to even try to fix the problem in our own archives, if this won't fix the insect damage problem at the library archive down the street and libraries all across all of our county?"

Success in feral cat management should first be regarded on a site-by-site basis. It is absurd to say that because I have only fixed and homed, say, 1200 cats over the course of the last 18 years, that I have not had an impact on the cat problem. There are many sites that had cat problems that no longer do. People were being bitten, money was being spent, people where complaining, animals were suffering---and this is no longer occuring at these sites.

15 years ago, I only knew one other person handling feral cats. Now I can't count the people who plop down a trap to get unhandleable cats fixed. Each ONE of these people is fixing as many or far more cats than I am fixing. This is an exponential change.

Was that exponential growth figured into this mathematical model?

Time to call interlibrary loan!