Category: Companion Animals

Guidelines for cat rescue by Carter Luke

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

EDITOR’S NOTE: Carter Luke, vice president of the Massachusetts SPCA humane services division, submitted the following guidelines as “a quickly drafted summary of my thoughts about things to consider” in cat rescue. “The MSPCA is not necessarily endorsing nor are we practicing neuter/release,” he continued, “but we are trying to provide guidance for humane approaches using any kind of strategy.”
The solution to the issue of unsocialized or feral
cats is often clouded with issues related to responding to the
presence of these cats. Clearly though, the bulk of our
efforts should be directed to preventing these situations from
occurring in the first place. All agencies involved in animal
protection should first and foremost be promoting responsi-
ble cat ownership, particularly focusing on matters relating
to sterilization, the wearing of identification, veterinary
care, and keeping cats safe at home, i.e. controlled.
Before doing anything

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Rosalba: a girl of the streets and her dirty old, mean old man

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

As among human beings, cats sometimes form
seemingly incomprehensible friendships, which make
sense only after noticing the details. One of the oddest
we’ve observed is between Catapuss, the grouchy old
bachelor, and Rosalba, a pretty young former feral. Kim
rescued Rosalba as a starving three-quarters-grown kitten,
who was barely surviving in inner-city Bridgeport. “Her
body was so badly twisted from starvation that she couldn’t
walk straight, she couldn’t keep her eyes open without
constant twitching, and her teeth were falling out,” Kim
remembers. “She was the most pathetic cat I ever saw.”
Yet she shared her habitat with a number of immense and
eminently healthy feral toms, who apparently looked out
for her to some extent.

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Rethinking neuter/release by Kim Bartlett

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

I have always had strict rules on neuter/release,
essentially the same as those recommended on the facing
page by Carter Luke: all cats and kittens who can be social-
ized for adoption should be; no ill, elderly, or disabled
cats should ever be released; all cats should be properly
vaccinated; no cat should be released into hostile habitat;
and all feral cat colonies should be kept under the careful
supervision of a responsible feeder, who will try to remove
and assist any cat in distress. I have never seen
neuter/release as any real solution to the problem of home-
less cats, just a stop-gap measure to prevent more births.
But I find myself even less enthusiastic about neuter/release
now, after our experiences of the past 10 months.
We thought we had found feral cat paradise here
on this 10-acre site in the mountains. It is nearly a mile
from the nearest paved road; we have a basement outfitted
with a spring-loaded cat door, blanketed beds, and a heater;

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Guest column: Instead of breeding bans

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

by Margaret Anne Cleek
I am convinced that breeding bans will not work.
This broad-brush approach is inappropriate because the
majority of pet owners are responsible. The people pro-
ducing the surplus are a relatively small percentage of the
population (perhaps one dog owner in three and one cat
owner in five according to the pro-breeding ban Humane
Society of the U.S.), but because of the high fertility rate
of the animals involved, the numbers of animals resulting
from their litters is great. We have to separate the animal
numbers from the people numbers to understand this.
Production control principles apply: you have to know the
source of the problem to address it.

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Guest Column: Let veterinarians do the job

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

by Lewis R. Plumb
Excellent shelter statistics for
Harris County, Texas (Houston metropoli-
tan area) were reported in the April issue of
ANIMAL PEOPLE. But while much
detail and comment was included, further
analysis is possible.
The Harris County area, with six
animal control and/or sheltering operations
active, has an estimated pet population of
1.28 million. About 8.5% of these will
arrive at a shelter each year, with 82.4% of
arrivals being killed for population control
purposes. At an average cost of $50 per
euthanized animal (the cost to catch, keep,
kill, and dispose of the carcass), the total
population control cost is $4.5 million a
year. With an average dog or cat litter size
of six, there is a need for an additional
16,000 spays per year to eliminate surplus
births. These must be effective spays,
meaning spays that would not otherwise be
done, on animals who have a very high
probability of breeding if not done.

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Editorial: Pet overpopulation: it’s win or lose now

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

The latest shelter statistics, presented on page twelve of this issue, suggest that at
present about four million cats per year are euthanized for population control––about two-
thirds of the total number of animals euthanized because they have no homes.
The significance of this number is not only that it is low indeed compared to the
best estimates of feline euthanasia published only a couple of years ago, and almost unbe-
lievably low compared to the estimates of 15 years ago. Records of kitten survival in both
private homes and feral colonies indicate that only about half of the kittens who are born
live long enough to be weaned. Only about half of the kittens who survive that long reach
sexual maturity, so that no more than 25% of all the cats born eventually join the breeding
population, even without neutering. Further, according to data ANIMAL PEOPLE col-
lected and published in 1992, while conducting the cat rescue project described in our lead
feature for this month, only about half of all feral mothers live long enough to bear more
than one litter, and only half of those live long enough to bear more than three litters. Our
cat rescue records indicate that only one feral mother in a hundred lives longer than three
years, so four to five litters appears to be the normal outside limit to feral reproduction.

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Chicago, New Jersey, Macon: Model animal control programs meet fiscal reality; SHORT-TERM SAVINGS MAY MEAN LONG-TERM TROUBLE

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

CHICAGO, Ill., SPRINGFIELD, N.J., and MACON, Ga.–– The financial pres-
sures of the 1990s threaten to undo the model animal population control programs envisioned in
the late 1980s, just as their benefits are beginning to be realized.
The budgetary ax fell first and hardest in Los Angeles, California, where on July 1,
1992, the city closed the public low-cost neutering clinics that helped cut animal control pickups
from 144,000 in 1970 to 87,000 in 1991, even as the estimated city pet population rose by 21%.
Euthanasia rates were cut proportionately. Animal control officials estimated that for every dollar

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What we’ve learned from feral cats

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

SHUSHAN, New York––If the ANIMAL PEO-
PLE headquarters were the space station in Star Trek: Deep
Space Nine, old Bull the former feral cat would be
Constable Odo. Battle-scarred as a pirate, he lived most of
his life in a wrecked car in the slum district of a struggling
Connecticut mill town. He hates and fears humanity. And
he’s the walking refutation of almost everything anyone has
ever believed about tough tomcats.
As ANIMAL PEOPLE publisher Kim Bartlett
puts it, “Bull would be moral by human standards.” Despite
his piratical appearance, he observes rules of conduct gen-
erally believed to be beyond feline comprehension. From
our first introduction to Bull, we’ve been repeatedly con-
founded by his altruism, his rigid respect for law and order,
and his courage in what could only be described as moral
dilemnas.

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BOOKS: Natural Healing for Dogs and Cats.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

Natural Healing for Dogs and Cats. B y
Diane Stein, The Crossing Press (P.O. Box 1048,
Freedom, CA 95019; 800-777-1048), 1993, 186 pages,
paper $16.95.
One American in three resorts to alternative health
care methods for some ailments, the New England Journal
of Medicine reported in January. Recognizing the potential
value of some alternative treatments, the National Institutes
of Health recently formed an Office of Alternative
Medicine, with an initial budget of $2 million. Yet the
availability of similar therapies for companion animals has
received relatively little attention. Pat Lazarus raised the
possibility in her 1983 volume Keep Your Pet Healthy The
Natural Way, and a few alternative-oriented veterinarians
such as Richard Kearns have attracted faithful followings,
but perhaps because there are few health food stores for ani-
mals, interest has been comparatively slow to develop.

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