Did you know Oct. 16 is National Feral Cat Day?
Yeah, neither did I and I pretty much keep up on such news and events. Well, regardless, I know now and so do you.
I’m actually pretty excited – I had no idea feral cats even had a day, let alone one right around the corner. And to top it off there are events and everything – even locally!
I know, pretty neat, and don’t you even try to deny your enthusiasm.
OK, OK, maybe enthusiasm is a little strong a word when I bet most people don’t even know what a feral cat is. So, stop scratching your head, I’m going to enlighten you.
Feral cats, according to the Feral Cat Coalition in San Diego, are “the ‘wild’ offspring of domestic cats and are primarily the result of a pet owners’ abandonment or failure to spay and neuter their animals, allowing them to breed uncontrolled.”
In essence, they are what most people call “strays.”
They’re the cats you see roaming around the dumpsters behind restaurants and sometimes in the yards of the more run-down areas of town.
Of course, an area needn’t be trashy to be home to a colony (that would be a group of feral kitties). Actually, anywhere that unaltered (not spayed or neutered) cats can freely roam and breed can be home to a colony – or a few colonies.
Some places in Europe have thousands of feral cats within city limits fed by compassionate people with a little extra time and money. I’m sure the U.S. has a few similar areas, but the colonies I know of are of a much smaller scale.
I actually spent Saturday with an organization from Knoxville that was trapping feral cats to spay/neuter them as well as give them shots and medical treatment. I was mostly a “kitty nurse” for a few hours, but it was an eye-opener all the same.
I watched over cats after their surgeries to make sure they were doing well and I spent a good bit of time fawning over some insanely adorable kittens. But, in the few hours I was there more than 10 cats were seen by the vet and there were at least 15 more in cages.
This may not seem like a large number when you imagine how many shelters handle, but these cats were all from small areas. At least three cats were trapped around the area I was while I was there, and that area was nothing but a large backyard.
I honestly had never seen so many cats in one place outside an animal shelter and even at shelters most of the cats are tame. Many of these kitties were most definitely not.
I’m sure some of you are confused as to why groups spend their time and money trapping cats just to set them free again after being neutered, but the answer is pretty simple. These cats are no different than Fluffy or Petunia, the ones sleeping on your sofa as you read this.
The only difference is that at some point they, or their parents/grandparents, were let out, or thrown out, by someone who didn’t want them anymore.
Many feral cats become accustomed to people and can be very affectionate.
In fact out of my family’s four cats, two were feral kittens and one was a pregnant stray I took in soon after her owners let her go.
Now, that doesn’t mean you should run out, trap a feral cat and expect it to become a lap cat. I strongly advise you to not do this. I’m just saying that some cats are never going to become people friendly but that doesn’t mean they deserve to die. By altering feral cats and releasing them, the cats can be free to live the way they like, but they can’t increase the cat population thereby lessening the need for euthanasia.
Now that you know more about feral cats and how great they can be (hey, they keep the rodent population down) maybe you’d like to help them. On Oct. 16, there is going to be a Sterile Feral Fun Walk in Kingsport. Basically, it’s a walk to raise money for the medical care of feral kitties in Northeast Tennessee.
For more information on the walk and how you can sign up or volunteer, please visit www.netal.org and scroll down the page and follow the appropriate link. In fact, there is a lot of information on that site, even some not related to cats.
For more basic information on feral cats you can visit www.feralcat.com. While this page is for a California based organization it has some really good links to articles and a lot of information. And, of course, you can always Google “feral cats” to get a list of interesting sites.
I got 123,000 hits by typing that phrase without quotes, but past the first 10 or so because I can’t vouch for their relevance to the subject matter at hand.
So, I hope many of you will check out some sites on feral cats and think about ways to help. Even if you don’t have time to volunteer, organizations are always happy to accept donations of food, blankets, towels and cash.

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