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.
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1 comments:
As a caretaker, this program (mostly, the volunteers orchestrating the program as well as the trapping assistance) has certainly helped with the reduction of kittens in my colony. The situation is bad enough with the unfortunate growth of feral cats in the community as well as a strain on the existing cats as far as them getting enough to eat without having to share with newcomers and a financial relief to the caretaker.
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