This comes via Sherri Johnson:
Up here on W. 19th, we’ve noticed quite a few new stray cats making the rounds. We’ve seen a black one, a brown and black male tabby, a white and orange one, and a yellowish tabby long hair. I understand that there was a colony of strays living in a garage between 20th and 21st on Stonewall this summer and my guess is that the kitties we’re now seeing might have been born there, and are now growing up and expanding their territory.
I would like to propose a neighborhood effort to get this colony under control as soon as possible.
Over the years, some neighbors and I have conducted “spay and release” missions around the neighborhood, and for a little while, had the local cats at zero population growth. Hopefully we can do this again. There are a number of vets and programs in the area that will spay or neuter stray cats for free or for very little cost.
In order to get the cats to the vet to be spayed/neutered we first have to catch them. In the past, we have accomplished this a couple of ways. 1) If the kitty can be befriended and trusts you, and if you are able to pet it, it’s often easy to pick it up and put it into a carrier for a trip to the vet. 2) More often with feral cats, a kind-trap is needed. The trap is baited with food, and when the cat goes into the trap for the food, the door shuts behind it and the cat is trapped, unharmed. Some programs and vets will loan out these traps to folks trying to capture ferals.
We need volunteers to help with a number of tasks, including:
- placing and monitoring kind-traps,
- donating $ to help cover spay/neuter fees,
- taking cats to thier spay/neuter appointment, and
- housing a cat overnight after its surgery.
If you can help with this effort, or would like more information, please let me know!
If you’d like to help, leave a comment and somebody will get back to you.