Yes, AzCATs offers low-cost spay/neutering and ear-tipping as long as you’re trapping through them and maintaining the colony by feeding and watering. As far as feeding a colony forever, that can be impossible, but it’s not impossible to find someone to take over. Plus if you don’t TNR then you have that many more ferals living in the same condition as the first ones. As far as I’m concerned TNR is the ONLY answer!
There is always a risk you may get a nursing mother, but this is far less than the risk of not spaying and neutering and having MORE kittens without a home.
When we TNR we hold the cat over-night to be sure the anesthesia has worn off and then release back to where we trapped. We will keep a cat longer if there were complications, etc. otherwise it’s just overnight. We have never had a problem with this and have TNR’d at least 100 cats now.
There are many reasons why not to test cats for FeLV or FIV. Here are a few of those reasons:
• Studies show that there is no greater incident of disease in feral cats than there is in tame, owned free-roaming cats.
• It is unaltered cats, regardless of whether they are from feral colonies or private homes, that wander, fight, reproduce, and have the potential to spread disease.
• Sterilization reduces or eliminates the behaviors which spread disease.
• Studies show that using our scarce economic resources to sterilize more cats than otherwise would be sterilized given the cost of testing, actually works to more quickly reduce the number of FeLV positive cats.
• The American Association of Feline Practitioners (AAFP) recommends retesting all cats that initially test positive. AAFP states that the decision to euthanize should never be made solely on the basis of one positive test. It is impractical or impossible to hold feral cats for the period of time necessary before retesting can occur.
• False positives do occur and a negative test does not necessarily mean that the cat has not been exposed to disease.
• Asymptomatic, infected cats can remain healthy for several years. Cats sterilized through TNR programs receive ongoing care and monitoring from their caregivers. Any cat showing signs of illness can be subsequently attended to.
• Removing and euthanizing a cat that tests positive will not necessarily prevent the spread of infection within the colony since the colony’s exposure to the virus would already have occurred.
• Exposure does not always mean infection.
What Are The Alternatives to TNR?
Do Nothing: Eventually the problem will reach unmanageable levels and cause untold suffering. One unaltered female cat and her offspring can produce 420,000 cats in just seven years.
Trap & Kill: Aside from being inhumane, this approach is not a solution. The problem is everywhere. More cats will simply move in to fill the void and start the cycle over again.
Catch & Tame: With the exception of young kittens, this approach is not realistic. Wild adults cannot be socialized to humans to the point where they are able to find homes as pets. For a small minority that could be tamed, the time and effort that goes into helping just a few cats is prohibitive. Even with very young kittens, taming can take several weeks of intensive socialization work.
Relocation: There is no other place for them to go and studies show that if you remove cats from their original location, others merely move in to take their place. This is known as the vacuum effect.