An Opinion Piece on Feral Cat Management in California

An Introduction: What it means to be Feral  

Is wilding in urbanity possible? The answer, yes.

Felis catus, the domesticated cat, has been released, abandoned, and set to roam free for decades across California. The offspring of these cats become feral, which describes a cat that lives outdoors, has had no or very little interaction with people, is fearful of humans, and is very unlikely to be re-domesticated. In the United States alone, it has been estimated that there are 60-100 million feral and abandoned cats (Jessup, 2004). Particularly in California, feral cats heavily populate urban areas; recently, in November 2022, animal advocates stated there are about 1-3 million feral cats within the city of Los Angeles (KTLA, 2022). These massive populations tend to form colonies that overwhelm urban centers. For example, there is a colony about 40 cats large that “invaded” the Oakland Coliseum (The Oaklandside, 2022). 

The abundance of feral cats are proving them to be more like pests than pets. Feral cats act as vectors for zoonotic pathogens and hunters of many wildlife species. While rare, rabies transmission to humans from feral cats is a concern for public health officials, as it is lethal to humans (Roberston, 2008). Feral cats have also been known to spread Yersinia pestis -the fatal human plague, - as well as Toxoplasmosis, which can be detrimental to people with compromised immune systems (Ibid). It is important to note that feral cats are not more effective pathogen vectors than free-roaming domestic cats (Slater and Shain, 2005), but ferals increase the overall chance of disease transmission to humans when larger, more concentrated populations form and are in closer contact with people. 

In addition to the transmission of diseases to humans, feral cats are also able to infect other wildlife. As discussed by Jessup in his review regarding the welfare of feral cats and wildlife, Toxoplasmosis also has an impact on the Hawaian crow and the threatened southern sea otter, both of which are in habitats shared or close to known feral cat populations (Jessup, 2004). It is also hypothesized that feral cats act as sources for Feline leukemia virus that infects mountain lions and Florida panthers (Ibid). 

Feral cats also directly harm wildlife through hunting. Their prey consists of small rodents, birds, and reptiles. In a survey of the Lindsay Museum of Walnut Creek, California - which rescues and rehabilitates injured wildlife, - they stated that between a ninth month period, 12% of the 143 mammals, 15% of the 11 reptiles, and 30.3% of the 3,353 song birds emitted into their care were injured by cats; these statistics do not even include the animals that died on attack site from cat predation (Ibid). From personal experience volunteering and working at Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network for over eight years, I also witnessed the injuries inflicted upon wild animals because of cat scratches and bites; many of these patients did not even survive the first day due to the severity of injuries and exposure to sepsis caused by the mass amounts of bacteria found in cats’ claws. It was disheartening to read the many tags taped on the front of rodent and bird cages that read “Reason for Intake: Cat-caught.” 

Ironically, some feral cats became so because their ancestors were released to hunt small rodents for pest control. In many Californian cases, feral cats tend to have the opposite effect and reduce the viability of species already threatened by land-use change and habitat fragmentation. For instance, in a study with the sites of Anthony Chabot Regional and Lake Chabot Regional Parks in Alameda County, California, the researchers found that feral cats tended to hunt and kill native bird and rodent species rather than the foreign house mouse, which lead to the house mouse’s expansion throughout the park and an overall decrease in biodiversity (Hawkins et al. 1999). Time and time again, feral cats have been a severe threat to the diverse yet fragile ecosystems in California. 

As feral cats threaten humans and, even more so, wildlife, Californian animal advocates, officials, and locals have devised management strategies over the years to combat their growing populations. A popular technique applied across California is called TNR, which stands for Trap, Neuter (or Spay if female), and Return. TNR works to trap feral cats, sterilize them to prevent further offspring, and then return them to their original colony (Guttilla and Strapp, 2010). However, TNR is proving futile against the growing populations of feral cats and showing very little success when used as the sole management technique (Foley et al. 2005). In the face of such a mounting problem, TNR can’t be used alone. 

The Argument: Why Feral Cat Management is Failing and What Can be Done 

The current techniques used to manage feral cat populations are inefficient to reach the goal agreed upon by many: reduce numbers. Due to ethical debates and a multitude of programs’ inabilities to adapt to site-specific needs and constraints, the feral cat problem is not improving. To aid this problem and reduce colony numbers, California management efforts must focus on multi-faceted, on-the-ground, local planning that supports a sustainable, humane environment for humans, wildlife, and feral cats. 

In this paper, I will explore a brief history of how California has approached the management of feral cats and explain why TNR has become one of the most popular programs utilized today. Along with this, I will detail the efforts many of the public have taken to treat these feral cats in the most “humane” ways they know and explain how this protection of feral cats actually subjects them and the wildlife they hunt to painful lives and gruesome deaths. In the second part of this paper, I will focus on the structure of the popular TNR management strategy and why it has failed to reduce feral cat populations in California metropolitan areas. For the final section of this paper, I will evaluate the feral cat problem in the East Bay and offer a dynamic solution that considers the ethics of the situation as well as the constraints of the environment. To prevent further wildling of domestic cats and, therefore, damages to urban species critical to the biodiversity of our California cities, we must be informed and reactive in our planning. 

Californian Feral Cat Management and TNR - Why we are stuck. 

Concerned cat advocates have taken their roles as powerful stakeholders in the feral-cat management debate. Due to policy maker’s wishes to appease these voices and preserve feral cat lives, California management programs have been stuck to rely on TNR and have barely altered their population control approaches despite changes in feral cat colonies and environments. However, this strategy of trap, neuter, and return inhumanely places cats back in environments where they can continue to cause wildlife harm and typically die a painful death. 

The solution to the growing feral cat populations in California is quite a controversial topic in which wildlife ecologists, cat-welfare advocates, politicians, and other involved citizens all have their own opinion. Originally, the typical management strategies used were doing nothing, relocation of feral cats to sanctuaries, or euthanasia (Slater and Shain, 2005). However, doing nothing is ineffective, and relocation of large numbers of feral cats can fill up limited sanctuaries quickly (Ibid). Euthanasia, while it directly decreases populations, is unpopular with the public. In 2016, PBS NewsHour released a story covering a national convention for the anti-euthanasia and pro-TNR group, AlleyCat Allies where the first speaker’s opening line was “Are you guys ready to save some cats?!” (PBS NewsHour, 2016). The idea of saving all cats across California is appealing and heroic, however, only utilizing TNR to avoid the deaths of hundreds of thousands if not millions of cats is an idealistic plan for a perfect scenario in an imperfect world.

This noble approach to spare the lives of ferals was adopted by California policy makers. According to California Fish and Wildlife legislation, feral cats captured by animal control and taken to a shelter must receive care and remain at that shelter for a holding period of at least 6 business days before having the ability to be adopted or euthanized (Cal. Fish & Game Code § 4151 (West)). To oblige the loud voices pro-TNR advocates, California policy prevents immediate euthanasia of these cats, which causes overcrowding of shelters and requires many resources when large colonies of cats are brought into shelters. Therefore, the only direct population management strategy left is TNR. 

As a result, an incredible dependence on TNR to reduce feral cat populations is present in many California management strategies, shelters, and involved nonprofits. In an interview with Gary Weitzman, the San Diego Humane Society’s president and CEO, he discussed the Humane Society’s strategies after absorbing Animal Control contracts for local municipalities around San Diego County. He argued for the almost-complete reliance on TNR by describing the moral inhumanity of euthanizing ferals, even if they are a bit more “wild” than a normal pet: "We absolutely stand for zero euthanasia of animals that are healthy or treatable (...) Just because they happen to be more wild than they are domestic should not mean that they need to be euthanized" (Weitzman, 2019). Yes, while many of the feral cats trapped and taken to shelters for sterilization are “healthy or treatable,” that does not mean returning them to the wild is a humane option. When returned, cats still kill wildlife, as sterilization decimates their capacity to reproduce but not hunt. Also, feral cats typically do not live long, peaceful lives after the TNR processes. It has been estimated that unlike the average indoor, domestic cat, which typically lives about ten years, its wild sibling, the feral cat, has an lifespan of about two years (Jessup, 2004). To compact this fact, causes of death for feral cats typically include disease, over-exposure of elements, dog attacks, wildlife attacks, or starvation (Folley et al. 2005). While TNR-only approaches in California tend to carry a “feral cat savior mentality” they still do not result in the most humane outcomes for wildlife or returned cats. 

Not only does TNR fall short in providing humane return strategies for feral cats, it also is a one-dimensional strategy that lacks flexibility. In their chapter in The State of Animals III, Slater and Shain explain that no one solution will work in every location (Slater and Shain, 2005). Even though, like any population, feral cat colonies are ever-changing and, usually, ever-growing, the solution to these site-specific, dynamic problems is typically TNR because that is all that is politically available. TNR alone cannot adapt to the specific variables of each regional colony of feral cats, and, as I will illustrate, it has not been able to do so. Our approach to the feral feline wilding issue must change. 

The Failure to Control Populations

As will be discussed, the methods resulting from political and moral discourse to control large feral cat populations in California have been largely unsuccessful. These failures are primarily due to the ignorance, lacking transparency, and poor reactiveness associated with population management -specifically TNR. 

Gaps in public education are a big contributing factor to the failures in California feral cat management strategies. A critical example of public ignorance manifests in the feeding and care of feral cats colonies. Studies have shown human feeding of ferals supports a good number of the population. For example, in Santa Clara County, 10% of households regularly fed an average of 3.4 cats, and, in San Diego County, 9% of households regularly fed an average of 2.6 cats (Levy and Crawford, 2004). Furthermore, many pro-TNR foundations and websites encourage public citizens to become feral cat caretakers. For instance, Alley Cat Allies provide food and water tips on their website, and Neighborhood Cats, a feral cat rescue, argues that “feeding the cats is one of a caretaker’s most important tasks.” While attempting to help their environment and provide subsistence for cats living on the street, people who feed feral cat colonies can actually cause more harm than good to their local ecosystem. When concerned citizens of the public take it upon themselves to become caretakers of cat colonies, this does not thwart the hunting of local wildlife (Plimpton et al. 2021). In fact, this management tactic increases the carrying capacity of the cats’ environment, which means more cats are able to concentrate there, and, therefore, more effectively hunt wildlife and create a setting for disease spread (Folley et al. 2005). Despite human feeding’s detriment to the environment, there are no laws in California that prohibit the feeding of feral cats (The Bakersfield Californian, 2013). To effectively manage cat populations, we must reduce carrying capacity. This will involve the reduction of feeding ferals, which should be fostered by greater access to public ecological education as well as mandated by updated policy. Ecological literacy, or an understanding that our actions have an impact on our surrounding ecosystem and vise-versa, is crucial to a successful management plan for any species, especially feral cats. 

Similar to feeding feral cats, other management strategies have inadvertently increased the wilding of our domestic feline population. For instance, the feral sanctuary strategy previously mentioned was utilized for unadoptable feral cats by the Chico Cat Coalition (CCC) starting in 1996; in order to remove the several cats that were harming the wildlife in California’s Bidwell Park, ferals were trapped and rehabilitated for adoption or, if too wild, transferred to a sanctuary held in a private barn (Levy and Crawford, 2004). However, this project became so publicized due to its early success that it actually encouraged neglectful pet owners to abandon their pets in Bidwell, which increased feral populations dramatically (Ibid). This increased-abandonment effect was also seen with TNR campaigns; Jesup describes TNR as an “enabler,” as cat owners have shown to increase abandonment of their pets when they believe their city will “care” for their cat through their TNR strategy (Jessup, 2004).

While, so far, I have been quite harsh on TNR, it can be successful when managing small, relatively isolated populations. For example, one of the earliest uses of TNR occurred on Stanford campus, where TNR was supplemented with the entrapment and re-homing of socialized cats and imprintable kittens. Fifteen years after the start of their operations in 1989, when about 500 ferals roamed the campus, they reduced their local population to eighty-five cats (Slater and Shain, 2005). As Stanford is in a semi-remote location, mainly surrounded by suburban landscapes, the migration of truly feral cats into the campus was rare, so those that increase colony numbers are typically socialized, abandoned street cats that were then put up for adoption (Ibid). 

However, when it comes to trying to reduce large populations of feral cats through both local efforts and city-wide campaigns, TNR has been less efficient. A lot of TNR is driven by local volunteers and concerned community members. For instance, the non-profit Operation Catnip has instigated volunteer-based TNR campaigns in a handful of U.S. cities including Raleigh, NC; Gainesville, FL; and Stillwater, OK. By 2002, the operation in Gainesville was able to spay/neuter up to 165 cats in a day with the help of 5-10 volunteer vets and 30-50 volunteering citizens (Centonze and Levy, 2002). However, this operation has yet to successfully and routinely reduce the population of ferals in Gainesville as they are still operating and providing spay and neuter clinics to this day (Operation Catnip, 2022). Volunteer-based operations, while effective with enough dedicated participants, can be fickle if the volunteers lack incentive or skill to continue with the campaign (Jessup, 2004). In these types of campaigns, there must be enough dedicated citizens and veterinarians willing to trap, neuter, and rehome (preferably) or return cats to meet the demands of ever-growing colonies, which on a city-scale, is usually infeasible. 

Official campaigns on regional scale are also typically ineffective. In San Diego County, there are about 400,000 feral cats (San Diego Humane Society, 2023), and this population has overwhelmed the region since the late 20th century. Between the years of 1992 and 2003, 14,129 feral cats were sterilized, 54% of which were female (Foley et al. 2005). According to Foley et al. in San Diego, from 1992 to 2003, the monthly distribution of pregnant female feral cats peaked each spring, as kitten season typically occurs in the spring. With the implementation of TNR, the peak for each year was cut down to about half between 1992 and 1999, but this decrease in pregnant cat distribution plateaus until the end of Foley’s study. 

Decreasing the number of fertile females is critical to reduce the overall population. However, as seen in the study, the TNR campaign of San Diego County is not effective on its own to reduce cat numbers. In total, this campaign trapped, neutered, and returned 180,000 cats by 2004 and a follow up study showed no significant change within the population (Jessup, 2004). The TNR project’s operability reached a limit, which indicates the city’s need to supplement the TNR plan with other strategies, like public education and policy. 

So, if euthanasia is considered too inhumane by an overwhelming multitude of citizens, feeding attracts cats, and TNR returns cats to unsafe situations and has been ineffective on larger scales, what is there to do? As mentioned previously, there is not one way to move towards an effective solution: there are, and should be, many. The correct management strategy is one that is dynamic, locally-based, and includes all stakeholders involved: concerned members of the public, wildlife, and the cats. 

A Possible Solution for the East Bay 

Because management strategies should reflect the population dynamics and environmental, political, and economic constraints of a certain location, I will focus on the East Bay. I recommend utilizing TNR as the main way to manage populations directly and resorting to euthanasia when necessary, but, the key to a permanent reduction in feral cat numbers is accessible ecological education and pet care services for the public. 

There are two main goals to achieve when controlling any population. In regards to feral cats, Foley et al. explain that an effective program must either reduce the maximum mean number of female cats born annually or limit the carrying capacity of the feral cats’ environment (Foley et al. 2005). TNR in the East Bay could act as a tool to execute the first goal by spaying female cats. These TNR efforts could be executed by the many nonprofit organizations already existing in the Bay, like the Oakland TNR Coalition and Feral Change, as city lead campaigns have been shown to be ineffective and difficult to implement. Euthanasia of ferals, while unpalatable, should be utilized to ensure painless deaths for cats that should not be released and cannot be rehabilitated. These cats include those that pose a threat to the public (i.e. rabid or overly aggressive) and those that are sickly or injured and cannot survive sufficiently in the wild. When considering this criterion, the municipal governments of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties should enable immediate euthanasia without prolonged holding periods in shelters. However, neither TNR nor euthanasia should be the main tool used to reduce feral populations. 

The effectiveness of feral population management will be heavily reliant on education and equitable access to pet services. In an interview with Lisa Fulton is a caretaker of a local colony in Contra Costa who regularly traps feral cats to spay and neuter them at Contra Costa’s spay and neuter clinic as well at other local shelters; she described the great variation of her sightings of feral cats between neighborhoods. According to Fulton, feral cats tend to be much more commonplace in Oakland and Contra Costa communities than the more affluent Berkeley streets (Lisa Fulton, 2023). Similar to many issues that plague urban environments, the infestation of feral cats is, in its origin and manifestation, an issue of environmental injustice. 

Inequities in environmental education are common between low income and high income areas. Furthermore, these divides tend to be racial as well, as black and brown people tend to have less access to environmental education opportunities due to disparities in public education perpetuated by structural racism, which is rooted in racist practices baring brown and black people from equitable public infrastructure (Flanagan et al. 2022). In our discussion, Fulton expressed that many of the low income communities she interacted with when trapping ferals did not know that they could take their pets into the Contra Costa spay and neutering clinic for free (Fulton, 2023). This knowledge gap points to a problem of access, and not financial access to direct population management services, but access to education regarding pet care. 

A holistic approach utilized in Newburyport, Massachusetts was successful in dramatically reducing the feral cat population because the town educated its citizens on the need to sterilize their pets, the costs required when caring for a pet, and the detrimental impacts of abandonment of pets (Slater and Shane, 2005). This campaign was successful because it addressed the feral cat problem at its source: people. In the East Bay, more accessible ecological and pet care knowledge could be shared with lower income communities through services like a portable neuter/spay clinic -which has already been executed by Berkeley Humane- and guest speakers in local public schools to explain the importance of sterilizing our pets, explaining the financial and time costs a pet requires, and what free pet-care services are locally available. Seminars for colony caretakers should also be held to provide knowledge on the impacts of supplemental feeding and explain how it should not occur in habitats crucial to urban wildlife. Promoting ecological literacy and providing awareness of accessible services is critical to reducing cat reproduction and, therefore, reducing cases of cat abandonment and immigration into feral cat colonies. 

Conclusion: What is truly humane?

The truly humane solution to reducing feral cats lies not in direct population control, like euthanasia or TNR, but education as to how to care for our own pets. Humane treatment consists in reducing the number of domestic cats overall, by neutering/spaying pets and limiting hasty adoptions. When abandonment and immigration stop, supplemental TNR campaigns can actually take effect, but this success lies on people, not cats. To treat our cats with kindness and reduce the wilding of our pets, we must take responsibility for our ignorance and apathy and educate ourselves on how to truly care. Maybe the cats were never the feral ones, overcome by instinct and stressors; from the perspective of this wilding problem, it looks like we are. 

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