Charles River Alley Cats traps wild cats
Stray cats’ survival frequently depends on foraging for food in garbage cans and dumpsters. There are a bunch of cats in my neighborhood in Medford that live, after a fashion, in this way. I got involved with them after I saved a stray that a construction worker caught. Once they passed her to me, I felt responsible and took the animal to the vet. There, I learned she had kittens about 10 weeks before I brought her in. I also found out that she had an endometrial infection that would kill her if I didn’t give her antibiotics for 2 1/2 weeks. That meant she was about to become an involuntary house guest. After I had her spayed, I set her up in a special cage on my back porch and dispensed antibiotics in her food twice a day.
This is the cat. My sister nicknamed her Tallulah. If she looks wide-eyed in this picture, it is because feral cats will not blink when they are facing a human. Too scared. When cats blink, it is a sign that they are comfortable with their surroundings.
When the time came to let her out, my friend Cindy at Charles River Alley Cats, helped me release her. I could not have done it without Cindy’s help. It is important to have a friend like Cindy in the rescue business.
After we let the cat go and Cindy and I discussed the potential whereabouts of the kittens, she asked me to try and find them. After a couple days of asking around the neighborhood, I did indeed discover a hiding place for a family of cats - but they were not related to my cat. This was a different colony that I had found by accident and there was a female cat with kittens there, too.
At Cindy’s request, I helped Charles River Alley Cats secure permission — from a couple neighbors — to trap these cats. One of the neighbors told me she sought help several years ago for the stray cat epidemic in her neighborhood. No one was able to assist her. That is not uncommon and it’s not anyone’s fault, either. Most Animal Control Officers and the cities and towns that employ them can’t afford to spend time or resources catching stray cats.
In any case, the Charles River people are very skilled at trapping wild cats and I was fortunate to capture a trapping event on video.
The cats that they trapped -the female mom and the large furry male seen in this short movie - were both returned to the same location after they were spayed and neutered. Charles River returned the male within 48 hours and the Mom within less than 24 hours so that she could continue to care for her kittens.
The effort that Charles River Alley Cats made to prevent a population explosion of feral cats in my neighborhood represented an extraordinary investment of time and caring and effort on their part. After my Charles River pals moved to another location, they showed me how to set a trap and not coincidentally captured another male that was subsequently neutered and returned as well. You can see what the trap set-up looks like here….In the second photo, you can see the trip wire near the food.
The people who try to rescue cats often do it when no one else is available to help a neighborhood control their cat problem. They very frequently do it at their own expense. When there is no place for the cats to go, they spay/neuter them and return them and frequently arrange for someone to continue feed the cats (i.e. maintain the colony). And after these events occur, there are often neighbors who do not want the cats around at all, despite the fact that others have invested time, effort and money to fix a problem that would explode if it were ignored. And that’s the toughest part; ignoring a stray cat problem or feeding into it without trying to manage the consequences can be disastrous when the cats start to multiply. But that doesn’t guarantee that the efforts of the people who step into the breach will be appreciated or that their financial investment on behalf of others will be repaid.If you have an extra five or ten dollars that you can spare, how about writing a check or making an online deposit for Charles River Alley Cats? (This link will take you straight to their donation page.) Or write them a check and tell them Shelter Me sent you:
Charles River Alleycats
P.O. Box 600575
Newton, MA 02460
Sandy on April 28th 2009