Our analysis (Foley P., J. E. Foley. J. Levy 2005. Analysis of the impact of trap-neuter-return programs on populations of feral cats. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 227: 1775-1781) indicates that the capture effort needs to be almost an order of magnitude higher in order to depress feral cat population growth rates.
Patrick Foley [EMAIL PROTECTED] Russell Burke wrote: > here in the US a lot of effort is put into maintaining feral cat > populations, as strange as it sounds. advocates of this idea usually > promote "catch-neuter-release" programs, and claim such programs will > eventually reduce feral cat populations humanely. the evolutionary > biologist in me says that's really unlikely--it just selects for cats > that avoid traps. you only need to miss one male to keep all the > females pregnant, and only a few pregnant females to keep a steady > supply of kittens. TNR is extremely popular with the public. > > the only long-term published study of TNR programs that I've ever seen > (http://www.abcbirds.org/cats/NFWF.pdf) suggests that they do not work. > when people know you have a TNR program going, they dump more cats > there. and you can never catch them all. > > I love cats and have kept them as pets for many year. but they never > go outside my house. the raccoon trapping work I've done has resulted > in lots of feral cat captures, and from I've seen, living as a feral cat > is a pretty tough way to go. > > > > > Dr. Russell Burke > Department of Biology > 114 Hofstra University > Hempstead, NY 11549 > voice: (516) 463-5521 > fax: 516-463-5112 > http://www.people.hofstra.edu/faculty/russell_l_burke/ > > . > >
