Trap-Neuter-Return: The Humane Choice for Cats and Communities
What are community cats?
Community cats are unowned or semi-owned cats living outdoors. Some cats are friendly while others are feral.
Feral cats are the same species as pet cats but they are frightened of people and avoid human contact. Feral cats cannot be adopted into homes as pets.
What is Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR)?
TNR is a community cat management practice where community cats are humanely trapped, spayed or neutered, vaccinated against rabies, and eartipped (to identify a cat has been neutered and vaccinated).
Is TNR effective?
TNR is the only effective method of community cat management. No other method has permanently reduced the community cat population. Lethal control has failed because it only temporarily reduces the number of cats in a specific area. Animal control officers must continually trap and kill the new cats year after year, creating a cruel cycle where cats are trapped and killed at great cost to taxpayers with no decrease in the population.
“The cost for picking up and simply euthanizing and disposing of animals is
horrendous, in both the philosophical and the economic sense.”
– Mark Kumpf, Former President of the National Animal Control Association
More than 600 cities and counties have instituted TNR programs or policies, including almost every major city in the U.S., for example, Chicago, Fort Worth, Washington, D.C., Jacksonville, San Francisco, and St. Louis.
More and more cities and counties adopt TNR every year because trapping-and-killing, the traditional approach to community cats, has been used for decades without success. Years of failure and common sense makes it clear that TNR is the best choice for local governments.