30 December 2009
When multiple people arrive with cats at the same time, and all have unloaded their cats onto the sidewalk in front of the clinic door, confusion reigns! This can make it can be difficult for Gina/Debbie to keep people in the order that they arrive. It also exposes the cats to the elements, and causes the people to handle traps more frequently than necessary.
Look at those traps on the ground in the photograph! It hurts my back to see Susan have to stoop over to label that trap! Why ever set them down on the ground in the first place? For the Dec clinic, turnout was light and it was a great opportunity to try out a new check-in process. Instead of allowing people to park and unload their cats on their own, we instead forced folks to loop around the parking lot and stop in front of the clinic doors. This allows a line to form, ensuring people are addressed in the order that they arrive, and it also allows the traps to be loaded directly onto carts. Since the volume was so light , we never really had a line of vehicles waiting to check-in, but once we start getting higher volume months, there will definitely be a line!
There was some confusion as some people struggled with the concept of turning around and pulling up in front of the clinic door. For the Jan clinic, we should have signs and a dedicated guide to help indicate where people should should stop for the drop-off.
You can help smooth the check-in process by labeling all traps properly. If you arrive at the clinic without labels, you may be asked to move out of line to complete the labeling process. If you are moved out of the line, once you have filled out and labeled all traps, you will rejoin the line at the end! A template along with instructions for pre-populating and printing these labels can be found here. The labels list the trappers name, phone number, trapping location and sponsor organization.
Also, remember that at the Jan 24 clinic, only "Tru-Catch"-style traps with gravity operated doors will be allowed. Leave the Tomahawk's, Havahart's and other spring-loaded door style traps at home as they won't be accepted at the feral clinic. Volunteers can help also help by parking in the designated parking spaces along the south edge of the shopping center. This will leave the area in front of the clinic clear for loading and unloading, and leave space to form a line of vehicles.
23 December 2009
It took three attempts before I could approach her close enough to have a chance. On the third attempt, it took me about 30 minutes to maneuver myself into a position where I was kneeling in front of her with the net in my right hand. I waited until she was distracted by the noise of a passing vehicle and then sprung the net on her. She struggled and fought but I managed to keep a hold of her as I got her out of the net and into the carrier. I hate to use this tactic on a cat, but honestly I don't think she would ever go into a trap! Her mom has eluded the traps every time while 22 cats from the same colony have been TNR'd. Her nose got a little banged up (or maybe she has ringworm?) and her eye looks bad. I'll get her to the vet tomorrow. Thanks for all of the offers for fostering and help with her medical. If my current fostering or medical plans fall through, I know who else offered and I'll hit them up.
22 December 2009
I met Pancake last April while he was recovering from surgery. He had escaped from his owner's yard and had been struck by a car. When the owner refused to pay for the surgery, the NSPCA stepped in and provided care or him. Supposedly the staff at the vets office started calling him 'Pancake' because he liked te breakfast staple so much. Though he was wearing a cone and short one appendage, he didn't lack for any enthusiasm at seeing people, other dogs or for pulling on the leash while he walked. Because of his poor leash behavior, one of the NSPCA staff asked me to walk him.
The first time I took him out, his three paws scrabbled excitedly on the concrete floor and he could barely gain a purchase. Worried that he might tear open his stitches, the dog manager scooped him up and carried him to the door before setting him down. For the next three or four weeks, I did the same almost every moring. He put up with the indignity of being carried well. I doubt Pancake had ever been walked much by his owner. If he had been, it had been straining at the end of the leash choking himsef. Judging by his reaction to seeing other dogs, people, etc. I doubt he had much interacton.
Each morning I took him out and we walked in small circles wth him constantly trying to strain against the leash. Slowly, without yelling, or jerking, or correcting in any way, I taught him to walk next to me. For the first cuple of weeks we never made it out of the parking lot. We would do a short walk with me constantly changing drections to keep the leash loose and Pancake coming up to me. Each day, we expanded our range a little more. At first he was incredibly fearful of vehicles. Once I watched his eyes get as huge as saucers as a car approached from across te parking lot. After that I was careful to slowly introduce him cars and to have plenty of treats nearby when I did. Today, he barely notices cars at all and will run next to the bicycle.
Unfortunately, Pancake has shown aggressive tendacies towards other dogs. With the right introductions and supervision, I'm sure he could be integrated into another pack, but for the average owner, he'd probably be best as the only dog. I've worked with Pancake on basic obedience. He knows wait, sit, leave it, touch and come. He loves and deserves attention and affection. He needs an owner who can give him more than being locked away in a back yard or in a kennel at a shelter.
See Pancake and other dogs up for adopton at the http://www.nevadasca.org
21 December 2009
This kitten's mother has had three litters this year. I've been after her for months, but now I can trap inside the yard, and I think there's a good chance I can get her. This kitten is so bold, I think I'd like to try to net him before I trap momma. His eye looks infected and I'd like to get him some care so he doesn't lose it. If I do manage to get him, is anybody interested in taming/fostering?
16 December 2009
ALWAYS HANDLE TRAPS WITH CATS GENTLY, AS THOUGH THEY CONTAIN, LIVING, FEELING, BREATHING BEINGS INSIDE.
If your handling a dozen traps (or in some cases 30 or 40), it's easy to start feeling like your hauling around a bunch of cargo. Guess what? Even if you have to load or unload 100, they should still be treated with the same respect you show your owned pet. Would you want your owned pets slammed around in trap because the folks handling him/her were too busy or lazy to treat the traps with care? As we ramp up and do more of these larger trapping projects, it is very important to maintain quality, and to ensure that we are treating animals with care and respect. If you follow this one rule, the rest of these should be common sense!
A PROPER TRAP COVER MEASURES 3' x 5'. ALWAYS HAVE A CORRECTLY SIZED COVER AVAILABLE SO YOU CAN IMMEDIATELY COVER THE TRAP.
The first time I returned traps to Keith, he berated me for my funky trap covers. Some of them were pillow cases which had been cut down one seam to form a crude tent which did not adequately cover the trap. "A proper trap cover is 3' X 5,'" he said. The importance of a proper trap cover cannot be overstated. If the cover is too large, it becomes a hindrance, catching on other traps or in the wheels of the clinic carts. Worse yet, if the cover is too small, it will fail to accomplish it's primary purpose, calming the cat! Our trap bank policy is to always issue a trap with a "proper" trap already inside. Make sure that you have that cover available and that you use it!
NEVER LEAVE A TRAP ARMED AND UNATTENDED!
I once set a trap near a plant nursery in a secure enough location that it could be left for short periods of time. When I returned to check the trap, I discovered a pissed-off, soaking wet, six-week old kitten. A nearby sprinkler had drenched him, the newspaper liner and the trap cover. We moved him into a dry trap with a towel and got him inside a vehicle and he was fine. But what if I had left that trap out for hours at a time, or worse yet, overnight? Once a cat become caught in your trap, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS SAFETY! If you cannot guarantee that someone will not be able to tamper with a trapped cat, or other harm will not befall the cat you shouldn't leave a trap armed and unattended.
NEVER OPEN A TRAP WITH A CONSCIOUS, ALERT CAT UNLESS YOU ARE INDOORS!
If the cat does make it out of the trap, it will be possible to use a noose pole or net to get control of it and get it back into the trap. Having a cat escape from a trap while it's outdoors is a disaster. If you and the cat are lucky, you are still at the cat's colony and you are simply left with cat who will never go near a trap again. If you and the cat are unlucky, you're halfway across the city when he escapes. Now you have an unfixed cat in unfamiliar territory who will never go near a trap again! To avoid this particular mistake, ensure that you are indoors when opening traps for any reason!
NEVER LET A CAT OUT OF THE TRAP WHEN IT EVENTUALLY HAS TO GO BACK INSIDE IT!
To minimize the stress on the animals, and maximize the safety of all humans and cats involved, cats should stay in the traps at all times before and after surgery. Moving cats into a larger container may seem the humane thing to do, but cats feel secure in small enclosed spaces. Forcing them from a trap to a carrier, kennel or other container is bound to cause the animal more stress. It also increases the risk of the cat escaping (how stressful will it be to recapture it?), scratching or biting someone, or being injured. If you have to hold a feral cat for an extended period of time, place the trap inside of a larger kennel. This gives the cat a place to retreat to when you need to feed/water/change paper. You can safely open and close the guillotine door with a stick through the kennel bars. Otherwise, do the cats and yourself a favor and leave them in the trap!
PROVIDE THE CAT WITH THE MOST COMFORTABLE CONDITIONS POSSIBLE WHILE IN THE TRAP!
Pre-surgery, these hardy animals can take a lot. Used to living outside, they will be okay in most circumstances, except for what should be glaring obvious examples. Don't leave the cats exposed to direct sun for an excessive amount of time. Even on nice days here it often becomes quite hot in the direct sunlight. A sealed vehicle interior will heat even faster. If you must transport traps in a pickup truck, especially in cooler weather, make sure the traps are covered in a way so that they are protected from the 40, 50, 60 or even 70 MPH winds generated by driving! Also, make sure your load is secure so that traps cannot fall over during transport. A Tru Catch trap that turns upside down will open!
Post surgery, the anesthesia affects a cat's ability to regulate it's temperature so they must be maintained in an area that will not have temperature extremes. Change newspaper, feed and water twice a day. The cats pictured below are staged in Keith's garage. The traps rest on 2" x 4"'s which allow waste to drop down to the puppy pads below.
To provide yourself with the most comfortable conditions possible, elevate the traps to avoid having to kneel down to access the traps. Pictured below is a plastic topped folding table. Three large 24" x 30" puppy pads will cover this table completely. The metal poles serve the same purpose as the 2" x 4"'s in the previous picture.
AVOID USING HAVAHART, TOMAHAWK AND OTHER SPRING-POWERED TRAPS.
Tru-Catch and other gravity powered traps depend on the weight of the door to operate. The chances of one of these doors harming a cat while closing, even a small kitten is minuscule. Spring powered traps depend on the energy stored by pushing the door into its open position, which compresses the spring. Cats have been found with tails and bodies crushed by the force of the door closing. Other cats have managed to wedge between the doors and the trap, either escaping out of the trap entirely, or choking to death because their bodies remain in the trap. Some models of these traps do not have guillotine doors making it difficult for clinic workers to transfer cats in or out. Others have a trap door made from a solid metal plate. These doors do no allow you to observe the cat, before you open the trap door, making it difficult to observe the cat while the trap is covered. In both cases, these traps make staging and convalescing cats more difficult. Finally, the standardized size of the Tru-Catch traps allows more traps to fit into a smaller space more efficiently.
11 December 2009
Mimi lives in a pretty rough section of town. Yvonne's been caring for Mimi ever since her original benefactor was driven from the area by thug neighbors. Braving threats from free-roaming dogs, angry neighbors, and panhandlers, Yvonne has been supplying food for Mimi for many months since her original caretaker moved. Fearing for Mimi's safety and her own, Yvonne decided to retrap Mimi and provide her with a permanent home off of the streets. Retrapping cats is often difficult and Mimi, was not an exception . Mimi scoffed at conventional traps, and a failed attempt to secure her with a net had left her weary of being approached one.Yvonne contacted me in Sep. to see if we could catch her with the drop trap. We went out and I set up the drop trap and moved about 50 feet away. The string went around a small bit of sage brush. In what turned out to be a fateful and humongous rookie error, I failed to clear the string before she moved over to the trap. Immediately she showed interest and barely entered the trap. Sure that she would move to the back of the trap, I waited. She moved forward into the trap, and, as though she suddenly realized what it was she froze and started to turn. Had the string been running straight, I would have immediately sprung the trap because I could see she was going to move, but I hesitated, and in that instance she left the trap.
I fixed the string and we waited to no avail. On Saturdays, the mission down the street serves breakfast. Hundreds of free-roaming humans passed by making it impossible to get her. A four or five month old kitten continually poked its head out from a sewer grate across the street. I moved the drop trap and impressed the homeless crowd by bagging the kitten after only a minute or two. The next morning we returned even earlier to avoid the crowds. A skinny woman came walking down the street.Noticing the drop trap she started moving towards it. I jumped out of my truck and started into my spiel about trapping the cat so it could go live with Yvonne.
er sunken eyes grew as wide as saucers and she shrieked, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THE CAT!" I realized that she was as high as a kite. The absurdity of trying to catch a feral cat at 4:00 AM in the middle of the hood sunk in and I burst out laughing. Horrified the woman quickly moved off, muttering and cursing.
Mimi studiously ignored the drop trap for over an hour. Another small black cat appeared and entered the trap. I decided to let it eat so that trapping it would not scare Mimi. Mistake #1 for the day. A larger black cat appeared and chased the smaller cat out. The larger black cat proceeded to eat all of the food in the trap and was in no hurry to get out of it. I finally ended up shooing him out of the trap! DOH! Mistake #2 for the day. Another hour passed and Mimi was clearly never going to enter the drop trap. Instead of having two black cats to NR, I was empty-handed, skunked! GRRRRR!!
Two mornings later we returned and Mimi still ignored the trap. I managed to catch the larger black cat who we had neutered and eventually returned. On yet another morning, we tried again while Mimi again ignored the drop trap. She was too well fed to fall for our shenanigans. We finally deemed that we needed to hatch a new plan. Nothing much happened for a couple of months. I couldn't drive by the area without cruising by to see if she was still there, sitting in the sage brush, and she usually was.
This week Yvonne called me and left a panicked message. She had found the carcass of the large black that cat we had TNR'd in Sep. The local thugs were allowing their dogs to roam unleashed and this one had fallen victim. The next morning I met her near the area and laid out the plan: I would go alone and set the drop trap and move off a good distance and wait in the truck. Yvonne would come 15 minutes later and place the bait into the trap, calling Mimi and making a big fuss.
I pulled up and unloaded the trap. Mimi was there, and she watched me intently, obviously waiting for a meal. I moved off about 150 feet away where I had a clear view of the trap. Eying the dangling pigeon feather in the trap, Mimi moved towards it. She sat right outside of it and regarded it curiously. A guy came walking down the street, spooking her away from the trap. GRRRR, I thought, "Here we go again!"Yvonne arrived, and instead of ignoring me and proceeding to the trap as I had expected, she parked behind me and walked up to the truck. I told her to pull up like she normally does and place the bait in the trap. She pulled up, and proceeded to park right in my line of sight so I could no longer see the drop trap! I got out of the truck and watched her bait the trap and attempt to lure Mimi to the trap. After several minutes Yvonne came back to me.Yvonne was short on time and had to leave for an appointment. I had little hope of our plan working. I told her to leave and I would watch the trap and see what happens. She continued to talk and I watched as Mimi moved towards the trap. She ducked her head under and regarded the foil bowl filled with turkey meat and tuna. I held my breath as she moved towards the food and then immediately sprung the trap when she was in position!
Serita and Yvonne were relieved because we now had Mimi safe. I was relieved because I had finally recovered from the initial mistake. People like Serita and Yvonne and have big hearts and I enjoy helping people like them and cats like Mimi when I can. I also really like getting the "one that got away"!
09 December 2009
Akvhuna and the other caretakers wanted to TNR more of the cats in the park. Without the resources and knowledge to perform a mass trapping, their previous attempts were not that productive. C5 volunteers worked with another local animal welfare group to bring in traps, secure spay/neuter slots, and assist with transportation and staging.
Akhuna, and other caretakers worked hard this year to help socialize and adopt out many of the cats from the park. At one point this year, they estimate that there were over 60 cats living in the park. After adoptions and some attrition, the various colonies now total around 33 cats. With 20 out of 26 in one section, having been neutered for sure, Akhuna and the other caretakers are well on their way to supporting our ultimate goal: less kittens in the spring!
05 December 2009
The Community Cat Coalition of Clark County (C5) is a newly formed all-volunteer non-profit whose mission is to reduce the number of healthy cats euthanized in local shelters through public outreach and education and by managing community cat colonies with Trap Neuter Return (TNR). C5 seeks to differentiate itself from other local animal rescue organizations by doing TNR and public education exclusively. C5 will not act as a foster, adoption or rescue agency for cats. These types of programs are money and labor intensive, a drain on limited resources and many exist in the valley already. C5 is focused primarily on building a community-based TNR program where caretakers, homeowners, business owners etc. participate in managing community cats at their locations. We now have a 125 traps in our trap bank that are available for loan without a deposit and offer classes TNR classes every two weeks. C5 also matches caretakers with low or no-cost spay neuter resources. Assistance with mentoring, staging and transportation of trapped cats is also available on a limited basis. C5 provides expert trapping services for those who are unable to trap for themselves, or in those cases when a very large number of cats need to be trapped in a single location. We also provide expert trapping services for the most difficult to catch holdouts or for those who prefer to pay a trapper to perform the TNR work for them.
C5 is working closely with the Las Vegas Valley Humane Society and Heaven Can Wait Society to coordinate and concentrate TNR efforts in the valley. In Oct. we worked together trap and neuter 140 free-roaming cats in a single 35-acre neighborhood over three days in the largest single TNR of free-roaming cats ever done in the valley. Last month, C5 volunteers and the monks at the Thai Buddhist temple successfully TNR'd 57 cats. Cats and monks will both be happier when there are no kittens in the spring! Future mass trapping events are being planned to take advantage of the economy of scale provided by bringing a lot of traps and trappers into a concentrated area.
The core group that forms C5's current officers started working together in summer of 2009 to help support Keith Williams in his role the Clark County Feral Central Sponsor. Mr. William's is a county appointed volunteer whose role is to act as a buffer between animal control and the community cat caretakers. He will not provide their information to animal control and acts to try to resolve disputes between parties. Registering as caretakers and registering their colonies provides certain protections for both animals and caretakers.
For more information about the Feral Cat Colony ordinance, visit http://www.clarkcountyferalcats.org
Upcoming TNR classes will be on Dec 19th at the Winchester Recreation Center and on Jan 9th at Heaven Cant Wait Society's spay/neuter clinic on 547 N. Eastern from 12:30 -2:30 PM. Email TNRClass@gmail.com to register.
14 November 2009
On Thu, Aug 21 I saw Adrienne at the NSPCA. Adrienne is a long-time rescuer of dogs. It doesn't seem like even a week goes by before she has brought in some stray dog that was wandering around. She knew that I had recently started trapping cats and asked me if I would be willing to help her with a dog. She explained the situation, and I readily agreed.
Baron Mining
Some miners were working a claim in Jean, NV. Their camp was located close to the airport. A dog had been coming around and they had been feeding it. They had reached the point where they could feed her by hand, but they hadn't been able to safely catch her. Their claim expired and they had to leave. Adrienne's friend Joe had been going out there to provide her food and water, but no one had been out there since Sun! Being familiar with the area I told her I would head out and see if I could get a picture or at least confirm that she was still around.
I collected up the stuff I needed and by the time I got out there it was almost noon. The sun beat down oppressively and even the hardiest of Mojave's daytime inhabitants, the White-Tailed Antelope Squirrels were laying low. Just south of the airport a sign reading "Baron Mining and Assaying". The abandoned site looked desolate an uninviting consisting of little more than a concrete building pad, an electrical pole with a transformer and steel pole for a satellite dish. A hose bib stuck out of the ground promising life giving water, but the open tap was as dry as the sand underfoot.
Camp Site
I filled a bowl with dry food and topped it with a can of wet food. I filled the small water bowl that I had brought and immediately wished I had thought to bring a bucket, it was so hot! I poked around and found a promising set of tracks. Too large to be a coyote, they definitely belonged to a medium-sized canid, in the range of what Adrienne had described, 40- 50 lbs.
Old Track
I snapped some photos and then drove down a dirt road to the berm that supports the railroad tracks. Passing through that berm are several tunnels to allow water and vehicles to pass under the tracks. It looked like an ideal location to shelter from the sun. Unfortunately, I didn't see any other sign of her.
On Sat morning, I returned early and discovered all of the food was gone. I replaced the water bowl with a 3 gallon bucket and filled it to the brim. I filled up the food bowl and as I did, I had the distinct feeling that she was close by, watching me. I made a big show putting the food out, whistling and calling out. When I got back in the car, I headed down the road about 3/4 of a mile away before stopping. I got out my 20X spotting scope and steadied it on the the open car door. The place where I had stopped was slightly higher than the camp site and I had an excellent unobstructed view of the food bowl.
Fresh Track
She was eating from the bowl and occasionally glancing in my direction. She looked like a Siberian Husky. In the first of many bad decisions, I decided to try to drive closer so I could get a good photo. Without a decent lens, this proved to be fruitless. In the faint pre-dawn light, she was just a set of blurry pixels amidst a larger set of blurry pixels! My approach in the vehicle spooked her and she moved off rapidly to the south. I watched her for as long as I could through the scope and noted the position where I lost site of her.
In my second bad decision before even eating breakfast, I decided to follow her tracks to see if I could figure out where she held up during the day. There had been a tiny amount of rain the night before and a light breeze had created perfect conditions for tracking. Even though it was overcast and the lighting was poor, the ground conditions made it easy for me to follow her tracks. I did so for nearly a mile until I reached a point were a small wash intersected with a cattle fence. Clearly she was using this spot to cross the fence. The wash led to a tunnel that passed underneath the interstate, but it was choked with tumbleweeds and looked impassable. At this point I lost the track so I headed back to the car and called Adrienne to tell her what I had seen.
The next morning I returned with the "Stealth Cam" which is basically a camera with an IR sensor that triggers whenever something passes in front of it. I attached it to the Satellite dish pole but had to move the food to a new location so the stealth cam could have the sun behind it. I tested out the stealth cam and when I was satisfied that it was covering the area with the food bowl, I turned it on. I set my digital camera up on cinderblock pointing at the food from another direction. I started that camera recording video and then got into the car and drove off. I kept looking back at the site but I never caught a glimpse of her.
I returned and saw that the food was sitting there, untouched. The stealth cam was still pointing and it triggered when I approached the food bowl. My digital camera on the other had was gone. Two clear paw prints showed where she had walked up to it. I followed her steps and about 30 feet away, the camera was laying in the dirt, still recording. I picked it up and it was still wet with her saliva. Curious, I stopped the recording, (I wish I had kept filming and captured the distance from the cinderblock!) and reviewed the video. I fast forwarded until 8:26 seconds into the shot, the camera shakes and then you can clearly see her white legs as she walks with it in her mouth!
Shocked at her wiliness I packed up and made yet another mistake by leaving the food for her. The next day I came back with three cameras and set them up to capture her approach from any angle. Full satiated from a big meal the day before, she foiled my simple plan by completely ignoring the food. I packed up again, but this time I took the food with me leaving the bucket filled to the brim with water. I waited a couple of days, and then returned before dawn. As I approached the site with my windows rolled down, I heard barking. I pulled over and got out my camera to catch the sound. As soon as I started recording, the barking stopped.
I pulled into the site and started setting up the stealth cam. I turned around and nearly had a heart attack. She was standing a 100' away staring at me! I moved away from the food bowl and she moved in to eat, obviously quite hungry. I watched her eat, talking to her in soothing tones while I called Adrienne to tell her of my successful contact. It had taken a week and four trips out here to confirm her presence, but here she was! Clearly she was a Siberian Husky. A little on the skinny side, but not horrible looking for an animal living out in the desert. A black nylon collar was around her neck. I couldn't see any tags, but surely she had been someone's dog at some point! I shot some video and snapped a couple of crappy photographs. When she'd finished her meal, she moved off a little ways and laid down. I talked to her a bit more and then rang up Adrian excitedly.
Adrienne, Pam and I came up with a plan to trap her on Saturday morning. We agreed to meet at the NSPCA shelter at 5:45 AM. Adrienne brought ground beef and grease she had secured from KFC. Pam brought Nancy's trap. We headed out and about a half mile from the site stopped so that Pam could wait with Adrienne while I baited the trap. As I pulled away, the MP3 player in my TomTom selected Chumbawumba's "I get knocked down". Feeling that this song was appropriate for the light-hearted excitement I was feeling right now I turned it up loud and the sound was blasting out my windows as I pulled into the camp.
I wrestled the trap out of my car and set it up near where I had been placing the food bowl. I had doubts that she would simply walk into the trap since she had proven to be so clever already. I put the ground beef into the bowl and topped it with some KFC grease. I was in the process of fussing with a towel, trying to cover the trap bottom, when I noticed her standing only 20' away. The look on her face was clear, "What's taking you so long? I WANT THAT FOOD!"
I stopped messing with the towel and moved away from the trap, retreating to the car. Without hesitation, she walked into the trap and put her face down to the bowl. For a brief instant, the trap did not trigger and I started to utter,"Ah crap" but then the door fell shut. She panicked briefly, but as soon as she saw that she could not get out, she went back to eating the ground beef!
I called Adreinne and told her that I had her. I approached the trap with my camera and she was visibly shaking. When Pam came up she had already started to relax a little. We moved her into the back of Adrienne's Explorer and spent 30 or 45 minutes snacking on fruit and tea cookies that she had so generously brought. It's the great thing about Adrienne, the treats are always so good! By the time we were leaving the dog was clearly quite relaxed.
Captured!
Pam transported her to a local vet where she was vaccinated, spayed etc. There was no tag or microchip so I assume that she was dumped out there. To me it's the perfect place. Right next to the interstate, off of a exit with minimal traffic. I had hoped that she would have a chip and that we would find the owner, a truly happy ending, but this one will do.
Adrienne told me that as the trapper, I had the right to give her a name. She suggested finding the word "thief" in another language. My mind immediately flashed back to a time when we had a disagreement about the fare with a taxi driver in Lop Burii Thailand. As we leaped over a wall to escape from him, he called after us with the Thai word for thief "Khamoi! Khamoi!" I suggested it as a name and she liked it.
Baron MiningSome miners were working a claim in Jean, NV. Their camp was located close to the airport. A dog had been coming around and they had been feeding it. They had reached the point where they could feed her by hand, but they hadn't been able to safely catch her. Their claim expired and they had to leave. Adrienne's friend Joe had been going out there to provide her food and water, but no one had been out there since Sun! Being familiar with the area I told her I would head out and see if I could get a picture or at least confirm that she was still around.
I collected up the stuff I needed and by the time I got out there it was almost noon. The sun beat down oppressively and even the hardiest of Mojave's daytime inhabitants, the White-Tailed Antelope Squirrels were laying low. Just south of the airport a sign reading "Baron Mining and Assaying". The abandoned site looked desolate an uninviting consisting of little more than a concrete building pad, an electrical pole with a transformer and steel pole for a satellite dish. A hose bib stuck out of the ground promising life giving water, but the open tap was as dry as the sand underfoot.
Camp SiteI filled a bowl with dry food and topped it with a can of wet food. I filled the small water bowl that I had brought and immediately wished I had thought to bring a bucket, it was so hot! I poked around and found a promising set of tracks. Too large to be a coyote, they definitely belonged to a medium-sized canid, in the range of what Adrienne had described, 40- 50 lbs.
Old TrackI snapped some photos and then drove down a dirt road to the berm that supports the railroad tracks. Passing through that berm are several tunnels to allow water and vehicles to pass under the tracks. It looked like an ideal location to shelter from the sun. Unfortunately, I didn't see any other sign of her.
On Sat morning, I returned early and discovered all of the food was gone. I replaced the water bowl with a 3 gallon bucket and filled it to the brim. I filled up the food bowl and as I did, I had the distinct feeling that she was close by, watching me. I made a big show putting the food out, whistling and calling out. When I got back in the car, I headed down the road about 3/4 of a mile away before stopping. I got out my 20X spotting scope and steadied it on the the open car door. The place where I had stopped was slightly higher than the camp site and I had an excellent unobstructed view of the food bowl.
Fresh TrackShe was eating from the bowl and occasionally glancing in my direction. She looked like a Siberian Husky. In the first of many bad decisions, I decided to try to drive closer so I could get a good photo. Without a decent lens, this proved to be fruitless. In the faint pre-dawn light, she was just a set of blurry pixels amidst a larger set of blurry pixels! My approach in the vehicle spooked her and she moved off rapidly to the south. I watched her for as long as I could through the scope and noted the position where I lost site of her.
In my second bad decision before even eating breakfast, I decided to follow her tracks to see if I could figure out where she held up during the day. There had been a tiny amount of rain the night before and a light breeze had created perfect conditions for tracking. Even though it was overcast and the lighting was poor, the ground conditions made it easy for me to follow her tracks. I did so for nearly a mile until I reached a point were a small wash intersected with a cattle fence. Clearly she was using this spot to cross the fence. The wash led to a tunnel that passed underneath the interstate, but it was choked with tumbleweeds and looked impassable. At this point I lost the track so I headed back to the car and called Adrienne to tell her what I had seen.
The next morning I returned with the "Stealth Cam" which is basically a camera with an IR sensor that triggers whenever something passes in front of it. I attached it to the Satellite dish pole but had to move the food to a new location so the stealth cam could have the sun behind it. I tested out the stealth cam and when I was satisfied that it was covering the area with the food bowl, I turned it on. I set my digital camera up on cinderblock pointing at the food from another direction. I started that camera recording video and then got into the car and drove off. I kept looking back at the site but I never caught a glimpse of her.
I returned and saw that the food was sitting there, untouched. The stealth cam was still pointing and it triggered when I approached the food bowl. My digital camera on the other had was gone. Two clear paw prints showed where she had walked up to it. I followed her steps and about 30 feet away, the camera was laying in the dirt, still recording. I picked it up and it was still wet with her saliva. Curious, I stopped the recording, (I wish I had kept filming and captured the distance from the cinderblock!) and reviewed the video. I fast forwarded until 8:26 seconds into the shot, the camera shakes and then you can clearly see her white legs as she walks with it in her mouth!
Shocked at her wiliness I packed up and made yet another mistake by leaving the food for her. The next day I came back with three cameras and set them up to capture her approach from any angle. Full satiated from a big meal the day before, she foiled my simple plan by completely ignoring the food. I packed up again, but this time I took the food with me leaving the bucket filled to the brim with water. I waited a couple of days, and then returned before dawn. As I approached the site with my windows rolled down, I heard barking. I pulled over and got out my camera to catch the sound. As soon as I started recording, the barking stopped.
I pulled into the site and started setting up the stealth cam. I turned around and nearly had a heart attack. She was standing a 100' away staring at me! I moved away from the food bowl and she moved in to eat, obviously quite hungry. I watched her eat, talking to her in soothing tones while I called Adrienne to tell her of my successful contact. It had taken a week and four trips out here to confirm her presence, but here she was! Clearly she was a Siberian Husky. A little on the skinny side, but not horrible looking for an animal living out in the desert. A black nylon collar was around her neck. I couldn't see any tags, but surely she had been someone's dog at some point! I shot some video and snapped a couple of crappy photographs. When she'd finished her meal, she moved off a little ways and laid down. I talked to her a bit more and then rang up Adrian excitedly.
Adrienne, Pam and I came up with a plan to trap her on Saturday morning. We agreed to meet at the NSPCA shelter at 5:45 AM. Adrienne brought ground beef and grease she had secured from KFC. Pam brought Nancy's trap. We headed out and about a half mile from the site stopped so that Pam could wait with Adrienne while I baited the trap. As I pulled away, the MP3 player in my TomTom selected Chumbawumba's "I get knocked down". Feeling that this song was appropriate for the light-hearted excitement I was feeling right now I turned it up loud and the sound was blasting out my windows as I pulled into the camp.
I wrestled the trap out of my car and set it up near where I had been placing the food bowl. I had doubts that she would simply walk into the trap since she had proven to be so clever already. I put the ground beef into the bowl and topped it with some KFC grease. I was in the process of fussing with a towel, trying to cover the trap bottom, when I noticed her standing only 20' away. The look on her face was clear, "What's taking you so long? I WANT THAT FOOD!"
I stopped messing with the towel and moved away from the trap, retreating to the car. Without hesitation, she walked into the trap and put her face down to the bowl. For a brief instant, the trap did not trigger and I started to utter,"Ah crap" but then the door fell shut. She panicked briefly, but as soon as she saw that she could not get out, she went back to eating the ground beef!
I called Adreinne and told her that I had her. I approached the trap with my camera and she was visibly shaking. When Pam came up she had already started to relax a little. We moved her into the back of Adrienne's Explorer and spent 30 or 45 minutes snacking on fruit and tea cookies that she had so generously brought. It's the great thing about Adrienne, the treats are always so good! By the time we were leaving the dog was clearly quite relaxed.
Captured!Pam transported her to a local vet where she was vaccinated, spayed etc. There was no tag or microchip so I assume that she was dumped out there. To me it's the perfect place. Right next to the interstate, off of a exit with minimal traffic. I had hoped that she would have a chip and that we would find the owner, a truly happy ending, but this one will do.
Adrienne told me that as the trapper, I had the right to give her a name. She suggested finding the word "thief" in another language. My mind immediately flashed back to a time when we had a disagreement about the fare with a taxi driver in Lop Burii Thailand. As we leaped over a wall to escape from him, he called after us with the Thai word for thief "Khamoi! Khamoi!" I suggested it as a name and she liked it.
27 October 2009
If you see a dog walking down the street without it's owner, you would at least probably notice it. If you are an animal lover or maybe just a concerned citizen, you might stop the car and attempt to secure the dog before it gets hurt. You might also call animal control so that they could attempt to catch the stray dog if you were unable to do it. If you saw a stray cat roaming down your street would attempt to catch it? The realistic answer is absolutely not! You might be more inclined to leave it some food! You are also highly unlikely to call animal control unless the feline is yowling in your backyard at night, pooping in your rose bushes, or spraying all over your back door! Or worse yet, having kittens underneath your shed or in your attic, or inside a an infrequently used vehicle, etc.
Love them or hate them, community cats are not simply going to go away. Las Vegas is at the nexus of a perfect storm for feline overpopulation. We have a highly transient population that lives a very disposable lifestyle. Our weather conditions allow female cats to have as many as four litters per year. Multiple plentiful food sources for cats exist which can never be completely eliminated. Very few if any predators control cat populations in urban areas.
Cats are so disposable here, that an owned cat, has less than a 3% chance of being recovered by it's owner if it ends up at a shelter. Last year the over 18,000 cats were euthanized which works out to 50 cats a day, every single day of the year! As frightening as the intake and euthanasia numbers for Clark County are, the more frightening fact is that they've been growing by 10% a year for a number of years!
It's estimated that some 200-500,000 community cats exist in the Vegas Valley. Some believe there could actually be closer to 750,000! As long as there are so many community cats, it wouldn't matter if we had 100% spay/neuter rate amongst owned cats. A percentage of kittens from unspayed mom's is always going to find it's way into rescue and adoption groups. Many of those that end up in shelters become fodder for the needle.
The numbers of community cats are so large, we will never be able to either rescue nor euthanize our way out of this problem. The community cats need to be managed, which means in a nutshell: counting them, fixing them, and monitoring them afterwards. If you feed community cats outside, register as a feral colony caretaker with the Central Sponsor at http://www.clarkcountyferalcats.org. The Central Sponsor will not share your information with animal control. Ear tipped cats belonging to a registered colony have some protections under the 10.06 ordinance. If they are trapped by a citizen and end up at the county shelter, the Central Sponsor is contacted. If the cat can be matched to a colony/caretaker where it was trapped, it will be released back to the caretaker for $17 (the cost of a microchipping and vaccination update) to be returned to its colony. Need help managing your colony? We offer training classes in TNR, loan traps, and help connect caretakers with low-cost or grant funded spay/neuter slots. We are also working on ways to provide caretakers with food at considerable cost savings!
What other ways can you help? Spay/neuter all owned pets. Register your owned cats and dogs with the county. Registrations allow them to collect better information on pet ownership in the county. If you are registering a new car, get "Animal Appreciation" license plates. The money collected from pet registrations and spay/neuter license plates is used to support county spay/neuter programs.
Don't let your cat roam outside, or if you do (in violation of county ordinances) have them microchipped and consider having their ear tipped. If I catch an eartipped cat in a trap, I will release it shortly if not immediately. If there is no tipped ear, the cat is at best getting a couple of days cooling out in a trap and a ride to the clinic, and at worst, anesthesia and surgery to discover it's already been neutered! If you're pissed off neighbor traps your cat, they could end up at the county animal shelter. If your cat does disappear, check the shelter to see if it's there! They are only required to keep you cat for 72-hours so time is of the essence if your cat gets taken to the shelter as a stray.
Consider donating money or volunteering for an organization that helps community or feral cats, or supports spay/neuter programs. As I stated before, we will never euthanize or adopt our way out of the community cat overpopulation problem. Let's manage them through Trap Neuter Return (TNR) which has proven to be effective in so many communities.
26 October 2009
When I decided to start trapping feral cats, I quickly stumbled upon the passionate ravings of drop trap enthusiasts. I was intrigued by the idea of trapping with a device like this, because their supporters claimed they were so effective. Every place that claimed to produce them commercially was out of stock or back ordered! I found a relatively simple design here, and basically copied it. The drop trap I produced was sturdy and functional, but as of yet untested.
I was poking around a feeding station at a colony where we were preparing to trap when I met Greg. He demanded to know what I was doing as he had previously seen attempts at poisoning the cats with antifreeze at a nearby location. When I told him I was scouting the area in preparation for TNR, he quickly warmed up. I found out that Greg was sick with lung cancer. In another six weeks he would need to go to Tuscon for several weeks of treatment. One of the cats he feeds, "Sleepy" was neutered long ago, but Greg wanted to catch him so he could be moved to a cat sanctuary. Greg had been caring for Sleepy since 2001, and he was worried about his long-term prospects living in the wash. Sleepy had foiled repeated attempts to catch him using standard traps. Having been trapped before, he would not go in one again. I told Greg about my drop trap and we decided to give it a shot.
On a Tuesday night, Greg, Joe from SOS and I assembled near Sleepy's hangout. Armed with walkie-talkies and a couple hundred feet of pull cord, we setup the drop trap near his feeding spot on a flat piece of ground. Greg was concerned that Sleepy might not climb up the six feet to go to the drop trap but I assured him it would be OK. We baited it with some yummy human tuna and took our positions. Joe and Greg moved further up the wash where they could observe Sleepy and the drop trap from a distance. I moved down the wash and descended into to it so I could move to a place where Sleepy could no longer see that I was there.
In less than a minute, Joe radioed me that Sleepy was in the trap. Heart racing, I poked my head up ever so slowly so that I could verify that he was in a good position. Satisfied that he was completely underneath the trap, I pulled the rope connected to the stick that was propping up the trap. Weather stripping dampened the sound of the drop trap falling, but the prop stick made and extremely loud noise! Sleepy's buddy went bounding up the wash in alarm! I felt a surge of adrenaline race through me as I scrambled up the wash to get to the trap.
Feral cats go wild when confined and it's important to immediately cover them so they calm down. Being somewhat tame, Sleepy was rather non-plussed at being confined by the trap. He absolutely refused to exit the drop trap into the transfer trap. Recognizing the trap from being confined when he was neutered before, he ignored our repeated attempts at cajoling, pleading, prodding, and poking by steadfastly laying down in the center of the trap. Joe summed up all our feelings succinctly, "If only you knew what trouble three grown men were going through for you on a Tuesday night!"
After nearly an hour we decided to cut a small hole in the drop trap mesh in order to reach into the trap. I had some heavy leather gardening gloves. Joe attempted to prod Sleepy to no avail. I finally took the glove reached through the slit and grabbed all 12 lbs of Sleepy by the scruff like he was my baby kitten. Fortunately, Sleepy was quite friendly and gave in like a kitten. I unceremoniously dragged him into the the transfer trap without him hissing or attempting to bite me etc..
It took anthother two trips to the wash to catch Sleepy's pal but we got him too! The next night we returned to discover a cat that Greg had never seen before had moved right into Sleepy's spot! Talk about the vacuum effect! We returned a third time and spotted Sleepy's pal. I watched with binoculars from across the wash while Joe hid out of site with the string. He watched me warily from across the wash, but since I was so far away, after a couple of minutes he went right into the trap. I used the walkie talkie to tell Joe to pull the stick and we got him!
Both cats were relocated to the Happy Home Animal Sanctuary in Searchlight, NV much to Greg's relief..
21 October 2009
Clark County funds 40 neuter slots for feral cats per week with money raised by "Animal Appreciation" license plates, pet licensing fees etc. These 40 slots are usually divided between HCWS and Las Vegas Valley Humane Society and are used to answer trouble calls, colony management etc. on an ad hoc basis. On Oct. 1, representatives of HCWS, LV Humane Society and my group the Clark County Feral Cat Coalition met and discussed focusing the 40 slots in one neighborhood to maximize their effectiveness. Plans were made to trap 40 ferals from a particular neighborhood so that 10 slots per day could be filled the week of Oct. 19th - 22nd.
The surgeries were planned to be performed at the same time as a group of owned pets from the same neighborhood. HCWS held a block party on Oct. 10th at a 35-acre area near Charleston and US 95 dubbed the 'Hawaiin' neighborhood because of it's street names. They micro-chipped, vaccinated animals, and scheduled appointments for owned pets to be neutered for free. At the block party, we gathered extensive information about where feral cats were concentrated in the neighborhood. When it was determined that there were upwards of 150 feral cats in the neighborhood, a decision was made to up the feral surgery slots from 10 to 40 per day!
Trapping began on Sat Oct 17th around 6:30 PM. Twelve volunteers set out with over a 130 traps and the goal of delivering 100 cats on the first night. At around 11:00 PM as we wrapped up, 95 cats and 1 Chihuahua had been trapped and delivered to the clinic! The next morning, 7 more were in traps pushing us over our goal! We continued trapping on successive nights and finally ended up with 140 cats to TNR. Their surgeries were supposed to be performed over four days but the HCWS doctors over-performed and completed 35 surgeries on the first day and 101 on the second! The remaining cats were sick so their surgeries will be delayed until they are healthier.
There were some bumps in our otherwise smooth sailing....out of 33 owned dog surgeries from the area which were scheduled for Oct 20th, 9 people no-showed, brought a different animal, etc.... The house where I trapped, there are a couple of women who feed about 35 feral cats. I was able to trap 32, but was sabotaged by them feeding the remaining three cats before they could be trapped. Since they will no longer allow us access to trap, these three are unlikely to be caught before the others are released.
This is the first time that a cooperative effort has been made between the various feral cat groups to mount such a large mass trapping in a single area. Overall, I'd have to say it was a very successful operation! We met our goals and exceeded our timeline.
Updated Oct 22:
For the area targeted by the pet fair, the totals were 59 males and 65 females for a total of 124 trapped. Four were ABS (already been spayed) so 120 were TNR'd. An additional 14 cats were trapped just outside of the target area so those numbers are not included in these totals.
Here's the data plotted on google maps.
A short video of cats convalescing after surgery.
For more information about TNR in Clark County and the 10.06 ordinance that legalizes feral colony management, go to http://www.clarkcountyferalcats.org
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