Managing Community Cats

A Guide for Municipal Leaders

This guide examines the role of community cats (sometimes called free-roaming cats) in cat overpopulation and the concerns shared by officials, constituents and animal care and control agencies about these animals. It provides recommendations for strategies to manage community cat populations and effectively reduce their populations in the long term.

Few animal-related issues facing local leaders are potentially more difficult and time-consuming than those involving unowned, free-roaming cats in the community. Complaints or concerns regarding cats often represent a disproportionate share of animalrelated calls to elected officials and local animal care and control agencies. Dissent often arises among neighbors; between cat advocates and wildlife advocates; and among animal care and control leaders, local government leaders, and their constituents.

ABOUT TRAP-NEUTER-RETURN (TNR)

1. TRAP: Community cats are captured with a humane live trap. This is usually done by or with the assistance of the cats’ caretakers. Ideally all the cats in the colony are trapped within a short timeframe.
2. NEUTER: The cats are then transported in their traps to a veterinary clinic. There the cats are spayed (females) or neutered (males) and vaccinated against rabies by licensed veterinarians. They may also receive other veterinary care as needed. While under anesthesia, the tip of one of the cat’s ears is removed. This allows the cat to be identified at a distance as having been sterilized and vaccinated, preventing the cat from being needlessly re-admitted to a TNR program.
3. RETURN: Cats recover quickly from surgery and can be returned the next day to the same location where they started out. Colony caretakers and other residents continue to provide food, water and shelter to the cats and monitor the colony for any issues that arise or new cats who show up.