How to Translate the Modeling of Free-roaming Cat Management to the Real World: Strategic Trap-Neuter-Return

An interdisciplinary team of animal welfare professionals, wildlife experts, veterinarians, economists, and others developed a robust, realistic computer simulation model of free-roaming cat population (FRC) dynamics. The model considered several common approaches: Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR), removal for adoption, removal for euthanasia, removal with a combination of adoption and euthanasia, combined TNR and adoption, episodic culling, and taking no action. Costs, based on detailed surveys of public and private agencies, were evaluated for each approach. 

This presentation translates the modeling results into lessons that you can take back to your community to help improve the effectiveness of humane FRC population management in both population impact and cost using a combination of discussion and presentation. Available tools to assist with this effort will also be shared.  Among the findings that we will discuss are:
•  How and why high-intensity, strategic TNR is the most effective and cost-efficient non-lethal approach over time.
•  Why low-intensity TNR, which is commonly practiced, costs a lot more than high-intensity TNR relative to its impact on reducing cat populations over time. 
•  How different management approaches yield dramatically different numbers of “preventable” deaths, particularly of kittens. 
•  Why it is so important to “frontload” TNR efforts and start big, rather than approaching as a small pilot. 
•  The importance of outreach and support to reduce abandonment and immigration of cats and kittens, as this can sabotage the success of any intervention.
•  Why monitoring population numbers is as essential as the population control intervention itself, and how to do it.

This presentation was recorded at the 2022 ASPCA Maddie's Cornell Shelter Medicine Conference.

Presenter: Margaret Slater, DVM, PhD

This program has been pre-approved for 1.0 Certified Animal Welfare Administrator continuing education credits by The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement and by the National Animal Care & Control Association.

keywords veterinary medicine, shelter medicine, TNR, trap neuter return, wildlife, community cats, stray cats, free-roaming cat population, FRC, frontload TNR, high-intensity TNR, strategic TNR, cat management, stray cat intervention, feline population monitoring, 2022 ASPCA Maddie's Cornell Shelter Medicine Conference