Shelters look for feral cat trappers

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Every year the Town Lake Animal Center has to euthanize thousands of animals, but there is a grassroots effort underway to help control the pet population in Austin so homeless animals do not end up in area shelters.

"There are cats everywhere," said Brian Cole, as he loaded 15 feral cats inside traps onto the back of his pickup truck.

Cole is a volunteer feral cat trapper.

"We can get in and help the cats and help the people clean up a pretty bad situation when the feral cats are out of control," said Cole.

Cole is one of 250 trappers who works with the humane society in their catch-and-release program. The idea is to humanely trap feral cats to get them neutered or spayed and then released back.

"Once you neuter the cats, the population stabilizes, the cats relax and become less of a nuisance to the people," said Cole.

In order to make this happen, the Austin Humane Society has a clinic every Wednesday and Thursday year-round inside its adoption center in North Austin.

"We do anywhere from 50 to 75 a day," said Leticia Stivers, director of the Feral Cat Program .

Since the program started in 2007, a total of 7,500 cats have been spayed or neutered, and shelters said they expect to be overrun with kittens in the next few months with the start of "kitten season."

"The majority of people don't realize that 95 percent to 98 percent of the kittens that show up at our shelters in the spring come from feral cats," said Stivers.

The program has lead to a big drop in the number of cats showing up in area shelters, but that could end.

"The grant runs out at the end of 2009, so we are depending on the public to help us through donations and fundraising," said Stivers.

Trappers like Cole hope it continues because he sees an even bigger impact in the future.

"It's definitely step one, or one of the major steps, in getting Austin to a no-kill city," said Cole.

Though a number of rescue groups in the area try to find homes for animals about to be euthanized, the humane society and ASPCA need more feral cat trappers. They hold training sessions twice a month. For more information, visit their Web site .

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