The Plight of Stray Cats

by Kathleen MacKinnon

The sheer number of “community cats” living outdoors across the U.S. is mind-boggling. Estimates from Humane World for Animals, the World Animal Foundation, and Catster range from 30 to 100 million. Community cats are responsible for approximately 80 percent of kittens born each year, according to Humane World for Animals. When you consider that female cats typically go into heat at six months of age and can have three litters (with at least four kittens per litter) per year, the numbers are even more staggering.

The vast majority of community cats are not spayed or neutered, which enables their population to grow exponentially. This is detrimental to the cats and the environment we all live in. Many of these cats don’t lead healthy lives and are injured and killed on the streets by other animals, cars, or people who don’t want them on their property.

According to Humane World for Animals and American Bird Conservancy, cats have a devastating impact on wild bird populations and various ecosystems. They are not indigenous to the Americas (including the U.S.), which is important in understanding their impact. They were introduced by European colonists and are descendants of wild cats domesticated in Egypt. Thus, they have no natural predators here to moderate their populations. Furthermore, managing these cats, either outdoors or within the animal welfare community, requires an enormous amount of resources such as food, shelter, and veterinary care.

While the community cat issue sometimes feels too big to address, there is a lot more we can do to improve the lives of these cats, minimize their impact on our environment, and use animal welfare resources effectively along the way.

Identifying Community Cats

The term “community cats” typically refers to free-roaming cats living outdoors who are not legally “owned” by a person as defined by ASPCA, Best Friends Animal Society, and some other animal welfare organizations. (Unfortunately, companion animals are considered property in the U.S.). These so-called “community cats” include:

• Feral cats that are essentially wild animals that are fearful of humans,
• Semi-feral cats that have varying degrees of human socialization, and
• Stray cats who previously had a human family and have been lost or abandoned.

Cats don’t always fall neatly into these categories. And, it can be hard to determine, at least initially, whether a cat you may encounter living outdoors is feral, semi-feral, or stray as it can take time to gain the cat’s trust.

We believe it’s unfortunate that stray cats are often considered part of the larger community cat population because that can stigmatize them as “belonging” outdoors. Lost or abandoned friendly cats don’t belong outdoors fending for themselves.

Even if stray cats are provided food and outdoor shelter, and spayed/neutered, they need ongoing care to control fleas and other parasites, as well as vet care for periodic vaccines and treatment when they are sick or injured. They also need protection from extreme temperatures in the summer and winter. Cats that are relegated to an outdoor life without a legal guardian to care for them don’t live good lives and never “thrive.” The same can be said of feral and semi-feral cats, but their fear of humans means it’s not practical to provide them with the same kind of care that can be given to stray cats.

It’s important to draw a distinction between feral or semi-feral cats versus friendly stray cats because the best approaches for helping these cat populations are very different.

Helping Feral, Semi-feral Cats

For feral or semi-feral cats, trap-neuter-return (TNR) of healthy cats has become a more widely accepted way to humanely address this population. After trapping and neutering cats to prevent them from reproducing, the cats are then returned to the environment they came from. This ideally includes vaccinations and sometimes additional care, and when done properly, should include a dedicated caretaker who provides food and shelter outdoors, according to Alley Cat Allies.

Helping Lost, Abandoned Friendly Stray Cats

Conversely, stray cats living outdoors who are friendly with people, typically lost or abandoned pets, need to be rescued, provided with appropriate vet care, and rehomed.

Many of us in the DC-Maryland-Virginia (DMV) metropolitan area have seen stray cats outdoors in our own communities. While these cats are socialized with people, they may appear afraid of people due to living outdoors after previously living indoors; or they may be shy around people they aren’t familiar with. Some people ignore these cats, hoping they will go away. Other people assume these cats have a home, or feed them and are concerned but aren’t sure what else to do. A smaller number of people take action to rescue and rehome these cats.

The only way to effectively help stray cats is for everyone to work together. This means the combined efforts of individual people, neighbors in your community, and animal shelters and rescue organizations.

Steps You Can Take

Here are a few steps you can take to help stray cats in your neighborhood:

1. Try to determine if the cat has a home (versus a neighbor’s indoor-outdoor cat).

• • Consider the cat’s health and appearance.
  • Talk with neighbors and post signs around the neighborhood.
  • Check social media and lost/found pet databases such as NextDoor, Neighbors/Ring, and PawBoost for lost or found cat reports.
  • File a found cat report with the local animal shelter.

2. If the cat appears underweight, hungry or neglected, provide food, water, and shelter.
3. If possible, bring the cat indoors as a temporary safe haven, keeping the cat isolated from other pets.
4. Reach out to neighbors to work alongside you to help the cat.
5. Contact your local animal shelter to ask about their intake policy and process for helping stray cats.
6. Contact multiple animal rescue organizations to find out if they take in stray cats and seek their advice or assistance.
7. Consider adopting the cat yourself or commit to finding the cat a home through your own personal or community networks.

For a more extensive discussion about how to assess a cat in your neighborhood and recommendations on what to do, read Steps to Take If You Find a Cat Outdoors (Feral or Friendly Stray Cat).

Local Animal Shelters

Our local DMV animal shelters have made vast improvements over the past couple of decades to promote animal welfare. The shelters we are most familiar with are in Arlington, Alexandria, and Fairfax. They have moved away from an “animal control” mentality, focused on euthanizing homeless companion animals when they reach capacity, to an “animal welfare” mentality to help companion animals and their families. More work, however, needs to be done to help friendly stray cats.

Until recently, it has been common for animal shelters to turn away “stray” cats. They have sometimes argued that “there is no law against a cat living outdoors.” They have also tended to assume a cat found outdoors is feral, is someone’s indoor-outdoor cat, or is “lost and will find his way home.”

While these arguments may sometimes be true, assumptions shouldn’t be made without doing an assessment of the situation. We encourage shelters to develop a reasonable process for assessing potential stray cats, such as the process we have developed as described above. Our process relies on the person finding the cat to do the bulk of the legwork.

Only after an assessment is done, should the shelter determine whether they will take the cat into the shelter when they have capacity. We realize our animal shelters don’t have the capacity to take in every stray cat. If the shelter doesn’t have the capacity to help the cat, they should encourage the finder to adopt the cat or find the cat a home or contact rescue organizations for help.

SPCA NOVA believes no friendly stray cat belongs outdoors without a legal guardian who not only feeds the cat but also provides ongoing vet care and – better yet – an indoor-only home. We don’t support TNR for friendly stray cats that returns them outdoors to fend for themselves. They deserve a safe indoor home of their own.

While we see our local animal shelters moving in the right direction, we also see a tendency to assume, even prior to doing an assessment of the situation, that the cat is not social enough to be an indoor cat (and should be TNR’d) or that the cat has a home that they will somehow find their way back to. Many lost cats don’t know how to find their way back home without assistance from humans, especially when lost cats are indoor-only and not used to living outdoors. Furthermore, far too many cats are abandoned by humans and don’t have a home to return to.

Rescue Organizations

The DMV is lucky to have so many private non-profit animal rescue organizations to assist companion animals in need. However, the need far outpaces the available resources.

When seeking help for a stray cat, check the organizations’ websites to see if they indicate they take in stray cats. Some rescue organizations, like SPCA NOVA, focus on stray cats. Others focus on taking cats from animal shelters, typically from rural parts of Virginia or beyond.

Then reach out via email (phone calls are harder to manage) to those rescue organizations that appear to be receptive to taking in stray cats. Provide them with details about the cat, such as where you found the cat, a description of the cat’s condition, why you think the cat is lost or abandoned, how the cat interacts with you, whether the cat is currently outdoors or inside your home for safekeeping, and what you have done to try to locate the cat’s family. It’s also important to include photos!

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t get an immediate response, and be persistent. There is always a solution. If they can’t help, they may be able to identify other organizations you may not have reached out to.

A list of some of the animal rescue organizations in our area can be found on our website.

Making a Difference, One Cat at a Time

If you see a cat living outdoors, please be part of the solution. If you don’t see a stray cat in your immediate neighborhood, you won’t have to look far to find cats that need help. You can sign up for NextDoor and see what areas of interest they offer relating to pets or companion animals, and then select options that fit your interest in this topic. You will undoubtedly see cats posted that may be lost or abandoned, and you can offer to help. Or you can reach out to your local shelter or rescue organizations and offer to volunteer, or foster, or adopt a cat in need. Helping even one cat not only saves their life, but will enrich your life as well and have a positive impact on your community.