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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2 comments:
Way to go. I think that's great. I embarressed
to say that I know very little about Vegas. What
little I do know is from CSI and the Midnight
Louis novels.
Any way I think it's great what you all are
doing.
@NativeDancer
Thanks! Like many other places with favorable weather, transient populations, and victims of the economic downturn, we have a serious feral/free roaming cat problem.
Last year the county passed a TNR ordinance legitimizing the care of feral cats. Now it's just a matter of growing our manpower and resources as fast as the cat population does!
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