Community Cats

Felines known as community cats generally consist of a mixture of feral cats, semi-socialized cats and lost and abandoned pets—all of whom may gather together in colonies.

Managing these colonies and caring for individual cats within them requires ample planning and coordinated implementation.

The information in this section includes resources on TNR, community outreach, winter care tips and research on ferals to help you create or expand your community cat programs—and message the benefits of it to your community.

Also in this section is the latest research on assessing whether a car is feral or socialized but afraid, along with a new Feline Spectrum Assessment protocol to help you make those determinations.

three gray and black striped kittens peek out from a box indoors

How-Tos

Effectively Message How to Help Found Kittens

Access effective communication tools to engage and empower your community to know what to do when they find kittens who aren’t really lost.

Job Aid Downloads

Download the Kitten Bottle Feeding Guide and Kitten Weight & Age Chart

Check out these quick tools to help staff and volunteers with feeding bottle-fed kittens.

Videos

Guiding Trapped Cats Through Spay/Neuter Intake & Examination

This video series will walk you through the safest, least stressful methods of handling trapped, community, or feral-behaving cats in a spay/neuter clinic.

How-Tos

Simultaneously Message Kitten Foster Recruitment and Leaving Healthy Kittens in Place

Struggling with how to ask the public to leave found healthy kittens in the field while also recruiting kitten foster caregivers? Check out these messaging ideas.

Research

Research Comparing Costs of Trap/Neuter/Return (TNR) and Euthanasia

Learn about the relative costs of trap-euthanize vs trap-neuter-return and when they can decrease the population of community cats!

News

New Study: High-Intensity TNR Could Mean Over 30 Times Fewer Cat Deaths

A new study estimates over 30 times fewer feline deaths could be seen with high-intensity TNR programs.