With your support, nearly 500 cats have been TNR’d in Marysville
The cats come running when Denise drives up to the front of their house. They know this sound signifies the arrival of dinner. It wasn’t always this way, though.
Flashback to a year ago – the downtown area of Marysville, our neighbor to the north, was host to hundreds of homeless cats of all ages. Unaltered, unfed, and unloved: a recipe for disaster. With the help of the Marysville Police Department, FieldHaven Feline Center launched the Meowysville: TNR the Town program. It has been our goal from the start to trap, neuter, and return as many of these cats as possible to their colonies, a practice widely accepted as the most effective and humane method of controlling the population of community cats.
The first colony, aptly named Colony #1, was home to “Orange Tip,” a beautiful torti with an orange tip on her tail. She was the first of many trapped cats soon to follow. After her spay operation and rabies vaccine, she was treated to an ear tip before her release. This practice is a universal identification technique to show that a cat has been altered and does not need to be re-trapped.
Since then, FieldHaven has TNR’d nearly 500 cats, which equates to thousands of prevented births – lives that would have most likely died in the streets, spread disease, and/or simply added to the growing numbers of homeless and/or feral cats. This is a huge milestone! Even more importantly, it was the first year in a long time there weren’t any babies born to this colony.
Not all community cats are destined to live out their lives outdoors. If they are brought in early enough, kittens can be fostered and socialized to become ready for adoption. Such was the case for over 300 kittens rescued this past year.
Nationwide, the number of euthanized shelter cats is dropping. In 2020, we are hoping to start seeing an even-greater decrease in the number, which will truly illustrate the success of the TNR program. Thank you for your support of this life-saving work. And thank you, “Orange Tip,” for starting a cat-astrophic positive wave of change in the world of feline well-being nationwide!
PS – if you are interested in real estate in Marysville, the house where Colony #1 resides is on the market. A ready-made TNR’d community cat colony comes with it!
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