Freehold looking for stray cat caretakers may be a fool’s errand
After years of complaints, Free Church establishes a trap castration release program for feral cats; aAnd they need volunteers to make it work. In a 4-1 vote on Monday, The municipal council approved a plan to be implemented in 2023.
The program will include residents who volunteer to care for certain feral cat colonies. They would find and capture them stray, Help get them neutered and vaccinated, then return them to the district.
These volunteers will be known as “Community Cat Sitter” and the mayor is confident.
(Photo: Dan Kitwood, Getty Images)
“We’ll see if it works,” Mayor Kevin Kane said. “This is an issue that needs to be addressed, and we will try. We need them to explain and document these colonies.”
I’ve written about these TNR programs before. Is it really humane to simply let an animal return to homelessness where it has to fight for food, brave harsh winters?, and possibly dying slowly and agonizingly from car accidents or scuffles with wildlife rather than humanly?
And are these programs really effective? There are studies finally Not only are they ineffective in reducing the feral cat population but can actually cause them to gain weight.
Stray Cats (Wayne Low, Unsplash)
It is estimated that there are up to 2 million feral cats in New Jersey. As the study shows, capturing and spaying enough of them to outperform their breeders is a dubious proposition.
It’s also ironic to me that many of these volunteer “community cat sitters” will likely be some of the same people who initially compounded the problem by feeding strays and keeping them healthy enough to breed again and again.
The opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.
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