A Generalized Population Monitoring Program to Inform the Management of Free-Roaming Cats

Management of freeroaming cats was once a matter of interest primarily to animal control departments, public health officials, wildlife biologists, and a small but dedicated corps of cat colony caretakers. Over the last two decades, however, advocates for feral cats have become increasingly well organized, their ranks have grown substantially, and they have developed “TNR” (trap-neuter-return) programs as a humane alternative to lethal methods of population control. More recently, some conservationists and public health officials have questioned the efficacy of TNR and called for a return to traditional approaches to managing cat populations, including lethal control. Consequently, management approaches to freeroaming cats are now being debated in the public arena, and often receive substantial media attention. Because systematically-collected data on free-roaming cat populations is relatively limited, these exchanges take place in a substantial ‘information vacuum’, rendering it difficult to build a strategic consensus among different factions or to demonstrate convincingly the comparative effectiveness of different management options. This problem could be mitigated by systematic and coordinated data collection, preferably in the form of programs that could be implemented at low cost by with the assistance of cat colony caretakers and other volunteers. This document introduces the design principles and basic implementation steps for such programs. It is our belief that if the data collection process described herein were widely and consistently implemented, it would help to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of non-lethal management alternatives, and would additionally provide a basis for constructive engagement about cat management issues.