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Kitty Beat: Report from the Boroughs

Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) organizations and volunteers throughout New York City are hard at work every day to improve the quality of life for the city's thousands of feral cats, while humanely reducing their numbers through TNR. Read on to learn about some of the work these groups, including the NYC Feral Cat Initiative (NYCFCI), have accomplished recently.

Manhattan

Kudos to Urban Cat League! The Manhattan-based TNR group has spay/neutered 296 cats since the beginning of 2009. UCL President Mike Phillips, LVT, currently is fostering several adult cats and litters of kittens, some of whom need daily medication or socialization. Joe Martini and Jaime Gross are fostering kitten brothers Lucky and Clover. The brothers were found during a recent TNR project in Brooklyn. Lucky was born with only three legs. Joe is an expert feral kitten socializer and the brothers were quickly socialized.

On September 15, the NYCFCI and the ASPCA co-hosted a TNR Continuing Education Workshop and Webinar at the ASPCA's midtown office. The groundbreaking two-part workshop was presented simultaneously to two different audiences — one in-person, the other, online. Part one, Vet Q&A: A Day in the Life of the Mobile Spay/Neuter Clinic, featured information about health issues that affect feral cats, including what can be treated and how, considering the treatment limitations for unsocialized cats who will be returned to their colonies following treatment. Part Two of the workshop, Post-operative Care for Feral Cats, dealt with surgery after-care. It walked the audience through a presentation of photographs of what a properly healing suture looks like and what problematic sutures that need follow-up care might look like, and explored their potential causes. The webinar was recorded and will be available for viewing soon on the ASPCA and NYCFCI websites. Check back with the NYCFCI website to find out when the webinar will be available.

Brooklyn

Maria Rozos attended the NYCFCI Bottle Babies: Caring for Orphaned Kittens workshop, sponsored by PetSmart Charities, on August 6 at the ASPCA and now has fostered her first litter of neonatal kittens. Maria is an experienced foster caretaker who used to foster for Slope Street Cats, a TNR group in Brooklyn that no longer is active.

Basia Zamorska is an expert bottle-feeder and has fostered numerous litters. She works regularly with the NYCFCI and Gotham City Kitties.

Jesse Oldham, Senior Administrative Director, Community Outreach, ASPCA, staffed the NYCFCI booth at the Atlantic Antic Street Festival in downtown Brooklyn on October 4. Jesse fielded numerous questions from the public and distributed English- and Spanish-language versions of the popular NYCFCI brochure.

Best Bets for Pets, a pet-themed gift company, features a low-cost product line designed as a fundraising tool for non-profit animal charities. They created a fundraising program for cat charities that took place in October and featured their cat-themed gift items. Non-profit organizations that want to learn more about Best Bets for Pets should contact Elizabeth at bbfpnewyork@msn.com or (800) 738-8885.

Queens

The ASPCA hosted a TNR Spectacular! on July 25 that featured a mass spay/neuter clinic for feral cats and a feral cat information public outreach effort at the New York Hall of Science in Flushing Meadows Park. In a single day, an impressive 138 spay/neuter surgeries were performed on the ASPCA's fleet of five Mobile Spay/Neuter Clinics at no charge to caretakers.

In observance of National Feral Cat Day and New York Week for the Animals in October, the NYCFCI and the ASPCA co-sponsored a Feral Cat Winter Shelter Building Workshop, Demonstration & Sale in South Ozone Park. Reinier Samsingh, a protégée of shelter-building expert Ashot Karamian, provided instruction to a dozen feral cat colony caretakers from all five NYC boroughs and Long Island.

Friendly Ferals is demonstrating the power of collaboration. In October and November, the Queens-base TNR organization coordinated the efforts of area trappers and other TNR organizations, including SaveKitty Foundation, For Animals, Inc., and Friends of Strays, to bring more than 70 cats each month to the ASPCA's Sunday Feral Cat Spay Day. The Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals assisted by providing transport for many of the cats on a Wheels of Hope Transport Van. Mary Tschinkel, President of Friendly Ferals, expressed her gratitude to the organizations and trappers for their efforts in making each spay day a tremendous success, and to the ASPCA and the Mayor's Alliance for "making Queens County a better place for the ferals and the communities they live in! This was a true win-win situation, and it is networking with everyone to make a happy ending come true!"

Bronx

Since the February launch of their mobile spay/neuter van, the Toby Project has performed 2,111 spay/neuter surgeries on feral cats.

Nancy Costoso, who fosters puppies who need to be bottle-fed for Animal Care & Control's Manhattan shelter, recently expanded her scope when she took on a litter of bottle-baby kittens. Thanks, Nancy…your versatility is saving precious lives!

NYC Feral Cat Initiative  •  c/o Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals  •  244 Fifth Avenue, Suite R290  •  New York, NY 10001  •  (212) 330-0033  •  info@NYCFeralCat.org