Campus Cats
Kat Farlowe
Staff members unite to help control the feral cat population on campus
Most of us have seen them - a pair of golden eyes peering out from behind a bush, a flash of a tail, white paws scurrying into a culvert. The UGA campus is home to hundreds of feral cats. In fact, the number of feral cats in the U.S. has been estimated at 60 million. Ferals are the wild offspring of domestic cats, and always the result of pet owners who fail to spay or neuter their animals. The Humane Society of the United States estimates that a pair of breeding cats and their offspring can exponentially produce over 400,000 cats in 7 years! (http://www.feralcat.com/kelson.html)
Kelly Bettinger, a staff member in Plant Biology and experienced wildlife biologist, decided to address the feral cat problem at UGA. With the help of other dedicated cat lovers, Campus Cats was born. Staff Voice caught up with Kelly and asked her about the Campus Cats project and what others can do to help.
Staff Voice (SV): When and why did you start Campus Cats?
Campus Cats (CC): In December 2005 I happened to hear about and join the UGA Staff list serve. One of the first messages I received was of wild kittens at the main library….that initial message lead me to discover a loose network of folks around campus who were doing what they could for feral cats, and even some people who had been helping cats on campus for many years but didn’t know others were as well. We decided we could be more effective if we organized, and we are currently exploring the options of becoming an official non-profit group. As wildlife biologist with 14+ years of ornithological field research experience, and a cat lover who pampers her formerly-feral-but- now-perfectly–tame indoor cats greatly, my personal interest in being part of an organized managed cat colony program is to reduce the numbers of feral cats to benefit both the cats and wildlife!
As for those library kittens – the orange tabby male was caught February 2006 and adopted by a UGA professor, and the impossible-to-catch little black female was trapped just this week with her 3 kittens. They’ll be ready for adoption at the end of May!!
SV: What is the purpose of Campus Cats? How many have you spayed and neutered?
CC: The goal of our program is to humanely reduce the number of homeless cats on the UGA campus through TNR (trapping, spay/neuter, rabies vaccinations & other vet care, kitten adoption, and the lifelong care & feeding of adult cats returned to their campus territories.) We are modeling our program off the many successful programs at other universities, including Auburn University, University of Washington, University of Texas at Austin, NC State at Raleigh and Stanford.
Since we began keeping records in December 2005, we have adopted out nearly 40 kittens. This includes 9 currently in foster care awaiting adoption. Another 21 adult cats have been spayed or neutered and returned to their territories.
We also plan to incorporate an educational component, largely targeted at students, to slow the ongoing and cruel problem of abandoned pets, which reaches its peak as students leave town after graduation. Though it is just in the idea stage, we’d like to speak to landlords who currently allow renters to have pets, and suggest they offer one monthly pet fee to renters who show proof from a vet that their animal has been spayed or neutered, and charge a higher monthly pet fee to students who don’t have their animals fixed.
SV: What do you do with the donations that you are given and how do you get
them?
CC: Donations mostly go to cover our veterinarian bills (spay/neuter costs, rabies vaccinations, kitten vaccinations, etc.), but we have also used donations to purchase traps and large dog crates to use as recuperation pens for cats after surgery. Many donations come from people in the UGA community who hear about our efforts word-of-mouth and want to help somehow, in addition, we hold regular fundraisers including bake sales and yard sales, as well as sell handmade items such as catnip toys and tea cup birdfeeders.
SV: Some say that feeding the cats only makes the problem worse. What is
your answer to that?
CC: Feeding cats without taking the next important step of spaying and neutering does not help solve the problem. Stopping feeding doesn’t make the cats go away – people feed when and where they see cats, so the cats are already there. It has also been shown that unless you are on a small island, trapping and removing cats does not work. But it has been proven that TNR programs do stabilize and reduce cat numbers over time (Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (Vol. 222, No. 1, January 1, 2003).
Other benefits? Neutered males are less likely to spray, fight, and roam. There are two males on south campus that went from mortal enemies to best friends in the months following their trip to the vet clinic! Managed feral cat colonies are healthier than unmanaged colonies. And cats are vaccinated for rabies, so any potential health concerns are eliminated.
SV: What can the staff of the University do to further your cause?
CC: There are lots of different ways people can help:
1. Tax deductible donations can be made to us through the Athens Area Humane Society – make checks payable to “AAHS-Feral Cat/Campus Cats fund”. It is very important to include the “Feral cat fund” designation or donations won’t reach us. Checks can also be sent to Good Hands vet clinic (not tax deductible) or Colbert vet clinic (tax deductible). Make the checks out to either Good Hands or Colbert Vet Clinic, and include on the memo line - again, this is important so that funds benefit our program – a note that it is for Campus Cats, and include my name, Kelly Bettinger.
2. We always need dry and canned cat food! For canned food, the loaf varieties are preferred. We can also make good use of any cat food coupons.
3. Foster, foster, foster. It usually takes a commitment of 4-8 weeks in order to wean and socialize kittens. All vet care is covered, and we handle advertising for adoption.
4. Volunteer to help with fundraising activities, feeding (adopt a colony or as a backup feeder), or trapping. Sign up for our UGA Campus Cats E-newsletter, which comes out once a month and will keep folks informed of current activities.
For more information or to help, contact us at feralcatcaregivers@yahoo.com
