the sometimes vitriolic debate between environmentalists who see free-roaming domestic cats as an invasive species and animal welfare advocates who are appalled by the millions of cats (and dogs) euthanized in animal shelters each year.
Both sides do agree on two points; pet cats should not be allowed to prowl the neighborhood at will, any more than a dog, horse or potbellied pig, and cat owners who insist that their felines "deserve" a bit of freedom are both irresponsible and are not cat friendly.
Recent projects like Kitty Cams at the University of Georgia, in which cameras are attached to the collars of indoor-outdoor pet cats to track their activities filmed cats not only preying on cardinals, frogs and field mice but also lapping up antifreeze and sewer sludge, dodging moving cars and sparring violently with large dogs.
These are some of the reasons animal advocates claim that it is inhumane to let pet cats roam freely outdoors.
The study takes lethal aim at feral cats, however, calling into question the efficacy of the Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) methodology for controlling and decreasing feral cat populations. TNR is the practice of trapping, spaying and returning un-owned cats to a managed outdoor colony in the area from which they came. What the authors of the report failed to understand is that TNR is the only possible means for reducing the number of wildlife killed by feral cats.
Although some communities try to employ eradication as a remedy, decades of such efforts across the United States has irrefutably demonstrated eradication does not work.
Feral cats have a strong biological survival drive; attempts to catch cats for extermination triggers two biological imperatives causing the surviving cats to both over-breed and over-produce. That is, instead of having one litter of two to three kittens per year, a stressed female will have two or three litters of six to nine kittens annually.
Even if a community could catch and remove all their feral cats, a phenomenon called "the vacuum effect" quickly results in the neighboring cats entering the newly open territory bringing with them all the associated annoying behaviors, including an increase in wildlife killing.
As we’ve seen time after time in location after location all over the country, the end result of "catch and kill" methodologies only exasperates the problem. That is, the vacated neighborhood swiftly finds itself overrun again with feral cats fighting and caterwauling for mates, over breeding, and spraying to mark their new territory.
The only way to save our wildlife is to reduce the number of feral cats. The only known way to do that effectively is through well managed Trap/Neuter/Return programs.