After many years of dealing with cat overpopulation and many months of planning, the Estevan Humane Society is now piloting their new trap, neuter and return (TNR) project.
In the long run, the initiative allows for control of both the cat and mice populations, and humane society president Tayja Lakusta said they hope to see positive changes both in the community and at the shelter.
"This is going to long-term help us reduce the amount of cats that are found free-roaming. Cats that are reproducing and creating that never-ending cycle of always having cats being brought in, explained Lakusta.
"It's not going to completely eradicate it and stop it altogether, but it will significantly reduce the amount of cats we will see in the long term. It's going to take a few years to trap the majority of the cats in town and then just maintaining each colony. It's going to be an ongoing thing. But the first few years will be the most significant in trying to minimize the amount of cats,"
It took the right group of people to make this long-planned project come true. Volunteers planned on going to Regina's shelter to learn from their TNR program, but the pandemic forced them to do so virtually. After months of preparation, they did their first trial in May and so far everything went well.
"It took the right group of people coming together; enough interested parties that wanted to put work into getting this out there. It took a while, and it'll be ongoing learning. Every year, every month, everything will be a learning curve for the first little while, but I think we've got a good goal. Now we just have to work towards meeting that goal," Lakusta said.
Prairie Animal Health Centre (PAHC) in Estevan plays its role in meeting the shelter's goal. They set the time when vets will be able to take cats in for surgeries. There is a particular amount of cats they can work with in that one day. A few days before the date, the humane society goes down to a specific location to set live traps. They work one colony at a time, trying to catch, neuter and return all the cats before they move to the next spot.
The cats are housed at the shelter for several days before the surgery, which allows them to calm down a bit. It also gives the shelter time to observe animals and find out if there are any house cats in the batch. They post all cats that they caught to ensure that if there are any pets, owners have time to claim them.
Once the surgery is done, stray cats return to the shelter for 72 more hours to ensure that everything is healing properly. After that they are released at the same location where they were caught, so they could return to their regular habits and continue to control the mice population.
"The one battery released already, they went straight back to mousing. We've already got reports saying they're straight back to normal."
Stray cats that went through the TNR project have an ear tip marking. Lakusta pointed out that if people notice cats with this designation, they don't need to worry about those unless they are injured and need help.
"Our cats can be noticed by a crop to the left ear. If you see these cats out and about please leave them be. They are busy working and no longer contributing to the cat population," says the post on the Community Cats of Estevan Facebook page.
For the first event, the humane society captured nine animals, but only six of them were released back, as a few turned out to be more people-friendly. Lakusta noted that if it seems that animals have a chance to be domesticated, the shelter will keep them and try finding them a home.
Feral cats are not socialized and can't be homed, but that shouldn't be viewed as a problem. They are rather useful than dangerous for the community.
"They're not dangerous to people. I know people are worried that they might attack or that they carry diseases. But we're trying to minimize that. We're vaccinating them and doing everything against cat diseases. And feral cats are scared of people, they're more scared of you than you are of them. So they're never going to just come up and attack somebody. They usually choose to run away, hide, anything to get away from someone, that's what they're going to do first," Lakusta said.
She added that if people have any questions or suggestions, want to help or know of the location of a feral cat colony, they can call the shelter.
"If anybody's interested in helping out with this or being a volunteer for this, or any questions or concerns definitely reach out to us. This program doesn't work without people seeing the benefits of it and getting on board with us," Lakusta said.
In the long run, the project should affect the cats' intake at Estevan's non-kill shelter.
"We should see a lot less moms with kittens coming in, and a lot less feral cats as well. We get a lot of pregnant feral cats that we have to house while they raise their babies, and then we didn't have anywhere for these feral cats to go after the fact. But now that we have this program we can put them back to where they came from; they're spayed, and they've got their vaccines, so they aren't transmitting diseases to other cats and other animals," Lakusta explained.
The TNR program comes with a weighty bill, as there is no way to recoup any of the medical expenses with homeless cats. The project was started with strong support from the city, as the stray cat issue was a problem for Estevan for a while now. Lakusta hopes that this support will continue in the future, but the shelter will also need help from the community to ensure the project is successful.
"There will be fundraising having to be done at some point. The city has been really good with working with us on it, really open to the idea about this."
The shelter also plans to look into grant opportunities to keep the program rolling.
