Groundhog Day HCWS Feral Tuesday Clinic - Day 1

The last month and a half I've really struggled to be productive at trapping. Bad weather, poor planning, and uncooperative caretakers have all taken their toll on my ability to deliver cats. The final straw came during the trapping for the Jan feral clinic. I had access to nearly 50 traps and a half dozen trappers. We delivered 11 cats and that was only because Angela trapped 8! I spent nearly 12 hours to catch a measly 3 cats. GRRRRR! I was determined that this week, I'd be prepared to fill the 30-40 cat quota we're expected to deliver each Tuesday.

On Thu afternoon, I received and email from Emily stating that they wanted to do 100 cats the following Tuesday. By Friday afternoon I was calling and emailing trappers to figure out who could help when. The response was quite positive. I printed up some signs to notify caretakers that we were trapping, called some other caretakers and checked out a couple of the sites to make sure the food was taken up. On Sat morning I returned to police up food from the feeder whom I correctly predicted would ignore my sign.

Sat afternoon I rolled out with a dozen traps and the drop trap. I setup the droptrap on the sidewalk outside the landscaping company near the NSPCA. I've done extensive trapping in the is area (it's where I got my start!) and at this location alone, I've trapped 22 cats. There are only a few left to be done amongst the horde. I'd tried unsuccessfully a few times to trap these but to no avail. It was light enough to see well when I started, but at that time there was still too much traffic for the cats to come out. After an hour or so, things quieted down and the cats started feeding from the drop trap. I know these cats quite well, so I knew exactly I wanted to catch. A long-haired calico I called "Princess". She had successfully eluded the summer dragnet resulting in a new litter of five which had to be trapped this fall also! The second cat was a white and black short-hair that was new to the colony. He'd shown up a few months ago and was shy and had resisted previous attempts at trapping.

My truck was parked a couple of hundred feet away from the drop trap and I had setup on the hood of my truck a small command center consisting of  my binoculars, a spotlight and my spotting scope. I watched ear-tipped cat after ear-tipped cat enter the trap and eat the food. Just as I was beginning to think it was going to be a bust, Princess poked her head out between the fence. My heart started racing as she approached the trap. A car came speeding out of the adjacent business complex and she ducked back inside of the fence. A few minutes later, she cautiously came out and entered the trap just as another cat was leaving. Double checking that she was inside I sprung the trap and got her! I hustled over and removed her from the drop trap.

About 10 minutes later, a crowd was starting to form around the drop trap again. A couple of already fixed cats had been in and out of the trap.but no sign of the other one I was after. Suddenly, a cat appeared on the wall. I looked with my binoculars and saw it was the white and black cat. He jumped down and eyed the drop trap cautiously. Skittish, he decided to run across the street and view it from a different angle. After several minutes, he cautiously approached and then entered the trap. I sprung the trap on him, hustled over and got him quickly out of the drop trap.
 

Joe B. arrived and helped me setup traps in the wash and stayed to monitor them while I set off to me Trudy and Tricia at Nathan Adelson Hospice. By the time I arrived, Trudy had already trapped one. We setup some more traps and a few hours later, we had trapped a total of seven cats from NAH. Soft-hearted Joe delivered another cat from the NSPCA with a questionable eartip and an injury to his eye. I verified the  that he was one that had been previously trapped and then pondered what to do with  Tommy Boy. Stone-hearted Mike would have turned him lose in the wash without hesitation. Now though, I  had him, it seemed like the right thing to try to get him some antibiotics and hold him for a little while to see if his eye would clear up.


We moved onto the White Sands Motel on the strip and trapped  5 more. We packed up from the White Sands around midnight and I went home with 15 cats, 14 keepers and Tommy Boy. By the time I got everyone food and water, it was 1:30 AM.

(to be continued...)