This post is also available in : French German
Alley Cat Allies are launching the premiere of Global Cat Day today. The motto of the day is : kindness for all catkind.
Alley Cat Allies is an organization dedicated «to transform and develop communities to protect and improve the lives of cats.»
“On October 16th, compassionate people around the world come together to stand up for policies that protect the cats in their communities.”
You wouldn’t bring a wild animal into your home, and that’s what a community cat (feral cat) is : a wild animal. Pet cats are socialized and domesticated, community cats live outside, and this is their home.
Community cats are not abandoned or lost. They are not pets in distress, but they are often mistaken with socialized cats who have been abandoned. Feral cats are born outside, and are for the most part unadoptable. If you bring them to a shelter, they risk to be killed because they are unsocialized and cannot be re-homed.
Local laws sometimes punish caregivers of community cats. Authorities don’t always understand that the best place for feral cats is outdoor. This must change.
In some areas, it’s allowed to kill cats who don’t have an owner. To us, that’s just cruelty. There are other ways to control feline population.
TNR (trap-neuter-return) is the BEST way to solve the problem. Cats are trapped, they are seen by a veterinarian, they are spayed / neutered, and returned to their home : the outdoor. Every TNR cat has the tip of his ear cut, you can recognize them easily.
If you want to help, advocate for community cats and educate your own community about «compassionate cat management».
I’m so glad you are helping to spread the word about Global Cat Day!
Happy Global Cat Day Zorro.
We think this is a great idea : Kindness for all catkind 🙂
Purrs Georgia,Julie and JJ
Allie Cats is a great organization . We are big fans of the feral cats and have many living with us. Mostly they were kittens when we got them so they weren’t as hard to tame as the older ones. It is so important to do the T and R stuff. That way, there are so many cats in the shelters. You all have a great day.
Excellent post. It breaks my heart to see any cat not have a forever home, but I understand that is not always possible. XO
Happy Global Cat Day!
I have seen Global cat day in more than one place today, and I wonder if anyone has made a yearly calendar of every kind of cat day during the year? I am always behind or surprised by these days. New ones keep popping up. Sorry, I am not going to make the list!!!
MOL ! We were lost at the beginning too, and we still miss many of them ! Do you know Sweet Purrfections ? Truffle, Brulee, and Mom Paula have been designing the Blogging Cats Weekly Planner Calendar since 2013 or 2014. Many special days are listed in it. You can have an idea here https://sweetpurrfections.blogspot.com/search?q=calendar Purrs
This is such an important day! Thank you so much for spreading the message.
We love all the heroes who help the kitties day in and day out!
Yay for helping to spread the word!
Happy Global Cat Day Swiss Cats!!
Big hugs
Basil & Co xox
Too right you can’t un-feral a feral cat. Ferals are an issue, a challenge, we need to deal with humanely and compassionately, not like some fools here in New Zealand seem to think.
we agree with you! more people have to learn about TNR!! It’s so important
This is such a wonderful topic and we believe education needs to go a long way before people understand that living with ferals isn’t a horrible thing and that colony community caregivers are saints. We’ve captured and socialized ferals and though it takes a LOT of patience, respect, and hard, hard work, it is possible to turn that truly wild feral cat into a sweet pussycat. Thank you for helping celebrate Global Cat Day!
Great posty. you be lookin’ good Zorro. Big hugs
Luv ya’
Dezi and Raena
Happy Global Cat Day Friends! <3
We live in Savoy, in a middle mountain area. Of course in the village there are a number of cats that “belong” to no one in particular. They are not feral cats since they live in the village. Lots of people leave some food for them outside their houses. They also feed on dogs’ food, since most dogs here are friends with cats.
True feral cats are very scarce but their problem is hunters. ALL hunters have been educated in the certainty that feral cats are a plague because they kill hares, young deer, young wild boar, roes… But as they are so scarce they must not kill a lot of those! They mainly live on wild rats, of course. So do foxes.
Hunters are beginning to be more and more worried by ticks, because ticks are more and more numerous. They are a real plague and many hunters have developed Lyme disease.
A recent study (*) has shown that the more foxes and stone martens there are in an area, the less numerous infected ticks are. Because foxes eat wild rats carrying infected ticks, apparently. A number of hunters here have heard of that study and are considering stopping shooting foxes.
Feral cats have the same diet as foxes. Why shooting them?
(*)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/science/ticks-lyme-disease-foxes-martens.html
I was disgusted last year when it made the news that a local municipality was changing from extermination to TNR. Apparently, extermination of ferals is the norm around here. It just blows my mind. And the comments on the news story made me so angry and sad – most people support extermination. I truly don’t get it.
All cats are great!
We say, live and let live, live with Beins when you can, among others like us if not. and rid the world of rodents!
And another thought occurs to us. We would rather have a feral cat colony than the herds of whitetail deers we DO have. Cats eat annoying rodents, not our landscape plants…