Do Feral Cats Have a Right to Live?
A National No Kill Standard for Feral Cats
The humane movement makes many assumptions about feral cats, the quality of
their lives, and how they should be treated. These assumptions, however, do not
hold up under scrutiny and result in treating feral cats in ways that are in direct
conflict with principles that should guide policies of shelters and animal welfare
groups—principles which we advocate on behalf of other animals.
This article analyzes those assumptions in order to distill what those fundamental
principles should be as it relates to the “cousin” of the most popular pet in
America—the feral cat.
hey were revered as gods by the ancient Egyptians, persecuted as demons in the
Europe of the Middle Ages, and have been watched over by dedicated caretakers
for as long as written text prevails. No one knows how many there are, or even
exactly how to define them. They live in our barns, behind restaurants, in old warehouses,
wherever they can find a modicum of shelter, some scraps of food, and a place to bear
their young. They are especially common wherever there are transient populations of
people: on college campuses, military bases, apartment complexes, and tourist
destinations.
In the lexicon of animal sheltering, they are called “feral cats.” Popularly, they are known
as “barn cats,” “alley cats” or “wild cats.” Webster's dictionary defines feral as “having
escaped from domestication and become wild,” but this definition does not cover all the
cats we know as feral.
Cats in our society occupy a spectrum that runs from the cherished pet to ferals who may
have had little or no human contact or support. Some of these elusive felines were born in
parks and alleyways and will never become accustomed to people. Others may be
marginally “owned” living in someone’s backyard, garage, or barn, or traveling from
doorstep to doorstep in search of food and occasional shelter.
Whatever one calls them, they have a rich and noble history. The oldest known feral cat
colony, dating back several hundred years, sits in London’s Fitzroy Square, and inspired
T.S. Elliott’s famous poems that in turn inspired Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats,” the
longest running musical in Broadway history. A visit to the Coliseum in Rome may be
inspired by a love of history, but the visit will teach you more about feral cats and the
T
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people who feed and care for them—who outnumber the tourists there—than about the
great emperors of yore. Some feral cats even come with an Ivy League-caliber pedigree.
Hundreds of feral cats living on the campus of Stanford University are cared for and fed
daily by the University’s prestigious faculty.
In some parts of Italy, feral cats have a right to live where they are born, regardless of
human property rights. In other parts of the world, these cats are part of a “live and let
live” culture, sharing the urban landscape with all kinds of creatures, from pigeons to
people—and assuming the inevitable risks and benefits, joys and hardships that come
with living on earth.
In the U.S., however, feral cats have historically been seen as a “nuisance” and were
trapped en masse and taken to local shelters where they were routinely killed. This point
of view was unleashed with such vehemence by traditional shelters, that the largest
humane organization in the country at one time even advocated the arrest and prosecution
of those who believed—and practiced—otherwise.
Why the hard-line response? Are feral cats not worthy of our compassion and protection?
And should we accept their mass slaughter in U.S. animal shelters?
Should Feral Cats Be Killed?
The answer historically has been “yes.” For much of our movement’s history, feral cats
were referred to as “filthy,” “vicious,” and “fractious,” spared no quarter, even by those
claiming to be their “advocates.” As one proponent once said, “Ownerless animals must
be destroyed. It is as simple as that.” And unfortunately for the cats, it was as simple as
that. But not anymore.
The last three decades have seen the meteoric rise of one of the most innovative and
ethical programs to end the mass killing of cats in animal shelters. Indeed, in terms of
effectiveness in reducing impounds, deaths and unnecessary suffering, a feral cat
assistance program based on the principles of trap, neuter, return (“TNR”) is moving
beyond controversy or comment. The acceptance of TNR is increasing across all sectors
in animal welfare, animal rights, No Kill and animal control circles. TNR proclamations
are being endorsed by agencies, health departments, local governments, and by entire
communities.
There are those who belong to groups mired in the animal sheltering methods—and
failures—of the past; who continue to unfairly blame the cats for perceived decimation of
birds and wildlife based on shoddy science and the misleading pronouncements of
nativist organizations; who claim that TNR perpetuates suffering based on mistruths; and,
who continue to regurgitate clichés about all cats belonging in homes. But their view, and
their tenure, is disappearing.
In the late 1980s through the mid-1990s, staff at one of the largest humane organizations
in the country coined the phrase "subsidized abandonment" to describe feral cat
programs. One of their regional directors called TNR an "inhumane act". When a local
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rescue group turned to them for help in saving their feral colonies, not only did they
refuse, but their attorney encouraged the local prosecutor to file criminal charges against
the caretakers arguing that TNR was a violation of animal cruelty laws covering
abandonment—a crime which carried a jail sentence. They are not publicly making those
claims anymore. In terms of acceptance of TNR, we have, indeed, come a long way. That
does not mean we can sit back and declare victory. Only that victory is inevitable.
But what does that victory look like? In other words, are we doing all we should for feral
cats? Are we adequately expressing their most basic rights? And have we set down a
standard by which to measure No Kill success when it comes to feral cats? In order to do
that, we have to understand why shelters say they are killing them in the first place and in
the process, we have to challenge some of the erroneous beliefs about feral cats held by
even TNR advocates.
Shelters which advocate the killing of feral cats generally fall into one of two camps:
• For those who support TNR, they believe that a feral cat is a domestic
animal who cannot survive in the wild without human intervention. In
their view, unless there is a caretaker, the cat should be killed.
• For those who oppose TNR, they believe that even with human care, feral
cats still live a life of misery and suffering and should therefore be killed
with or without a caretaker.
But is either of these beliefs accurate? To find out, to get a clear and honest portrayal of
the life of feral cats, we must first answer the basic question of what exactly a feral cat is.
What is a feral cat?
If the question seems obvious, it is only because we have become so conditioned to the
notion that it appears to be beyond controversy. Webster’s dictionary defines “feral” as
“having escaped domestication and become wild,” but this definition does not
cover all the cats we come to know as feral. Nor does it get us closer to devising a
humane strategy—if necessary—to address their population. To do that, we need to know
what kind of question we are asking.
Is it a biological question? In other words, we know that all cats—feral or pet—are
genetically identical to the African wildcat, a wild animal by everyone’s definition. So if
the feral cat is biologically the same as a wild animal, isn’t the unsocialized feral cat born
on a remote corner of a farm and never becomes accustomed to people a wild animal?
Biologically the answer is yes.
Or perhaps the question is one of socio-behavior. If we determine that feral cats are
capable of surviving and thriving in the wild by exhibiting behavior we attribute to wild
animals like raccoons do we conclude that they are wild animals? By the same token, if
we determine that cats in the wild are disproportionately suffering more than animals we
all agree are wild animals, can we conclude that cats should no longer be considered wild
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animals? Does a caretaker change the calculus? Whether these are the right questions
might be less important than their answers. The studies of feral cat colonies by British
naturalist Roger Tabor prove that feral cats are truly hardy survivors. And the arguments
by U.S. shelters reaffirm this.
Traditional shelters are fond of telling us that feral cats are the offspring of domestic cats
who have run away and become lost or have been abandoned by people. If this is true,
then the abandoned pets are thriving, to the tune of 100 million feral cats estimated by
some. In other words, feral cats are doing all right out there. All right to the point that if
you believe traditional shelters, they are multiplying at the rate of 420,000 every seven
years for every two unaltered pairs (a ridiculous exaggeration whose sole purpose is to
underscore the point here). That is a lot of cats, proving that when it comes to food and
sex, the great outdoors is, well, great.
Take the wildest cat and he can learn to live around humans and may even exhibit petlike
behavior to the person who feeds him. (This is a familiar site at cat colonies with
feral cats who rub up against the legs of their feeders, and even perhaps purr, just like pet
cats.)
Take the most pampered house pet and let her loose in the wild (something No Kill
Solutions would never advocate), and she can survive with the deftness of the most
voracious raccoon, as Henry David Thoreau noted, writing in Walden:
Once I was surprised to see a cat walking along the stony shore of the
pond, for they rarely wonder so far from home. The surprise was mutual.
Nevertheless the most domestic cat, which has lain on a rug all her days,
appears quite at home in the woods, and, by her sly and stealthy
behavior, proves herself more native there than the regular inhabitants.
If that is the case, behaviorally speaking the answer again appears to be that feral cats are
wild animals.
If the question is one of genealogy, then the answer must be linked to parentage. So, if a
pet cat is abandoned or runs off and gets lost in the woods, has kittens and the kittens
grow up wild because they have no contact with people, are they wild or domestic?
If the answer is domestic because of domesticated parents, then let’s take the logic to its
conclusion. Let’s go further back because to stop at initial parentage is arbitrary. Let’s
look at grandparents and great-grandparents and ultimately all the way back to their wild
ancestors.
So if the basis for the claim is genealogy, the answer again seems to be a wild animal.
But since this can be said of most, if not all, animals, perhaps the real issue is not one of
domestication, but rather adaptability.
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But are we even asking the right questions? In other words, when it comes to the cat,
does the distinction of wild vs. domestic matter? Or, more importantly, even make sense?
Every American student goes through the litany in high school biology. We are taught
that all living things on this planet are categorized as follows: Kingdom, Phylum, Class,
Order, Family, Genus, and Species. For Kingdom, we know the world is broken down
further, the two main groups of which we are familiar are plants and animals.
And we also know that the primary difference between the two is that plants can
photosynthesize, and animals are terrestrial, in other words, can move from one location
to another on their own volition (as opposed to a plant or seed which relies on birds or the
wind for movement). That is how the world is broken down. Or is it?
In fact it is not. The biological categorization is a map humans have developed to make
sense of the world. We run into problems when we confuse the map of reality with reality
itself. What happens for example, if a creature can both photosynthesize and move from
one place to another? Is it a plant? Or is it an animal? It may be neither, or it may be both.
In fact, creatures in this category occupy a gray zone (now its own kingdom Protoctista
which is neither plant, animal, fungus or bacteria), a glorious example of the complexity
of the world or, poetically, the world trying to tell us that she is infinitely more complex
than our zest for neat little categorizations can always comprehend.
“Science is a process, not an end,” wrote the columnist Jeff Elliott. “We get into trouble
when we think that it can provide us with simple, conclusive explanations to describe a
complex world.” Add the cat to that mix. It too is neither a wild animal nor a domestic
one.
Desmond Morris, a curator for mammals at the London Zoo, who spent much of his
youth watching cats on the farm where he grew up, describes it best:
The cat leads a double life. This switch from tame pet to wild animal and
then back again is fascinating to watch. Any cat owner who has
accidentally come across the pet cat when it is deeply involved in some
feline soap opera of sex and violence will know what I mean. One instant
the animal is totally wrapped up in an intense drama of courtship or
status. Then out of the corner of its eye, it spots its human owner
watching the proceedings. There is a schizoid moment of double
involvement, a hesitation, and the animal runs across, rubs against its
owner’s leg, and becomes the house kitten once more… It is like a child
that grows up in a foreign country and as a consequence becomes
bilingual. The cat becomes bi-mental.
If the answer to what exactly is a feral cat eludes simple definition, their hardiness as
survivors does not. And therefore, neither does the question of how a shelter should
respond to them.
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How Should the Humane Community Treat Feral Cats?
Ignoring biology, sociology, genealogy, common experience and good sense, to shelters
mired in traditional philosophies, a cat is a cat is a cat. Regardless of whether the cat is
the most beloved and pampered pet or the wildest outcast, to these groups cats are
domestic animals who belong in a home. And in their view, the feral cat without a human
home is better off taken to a shelter and killed. For these groups, an unowned cat’s life is
a series of brutal experiences and shelters need to protect the cat from continued and
future suffering.
The reality is that all animals living in the wild face hardship—and feral cats are no
exception. Since no animal groups support the trapping and killing of other wild
animals—raccoons, mice, fox—why do we reserve this fate for feral cats? If feral cats are
genetically identical to wild animals, and they survive in the wild like wild animals, and
they are unsocial to humans like wild animals, and they share the same hardships as wild
animals, and if they can and do live in the wild like wild animals, shouldn’t we treat them
as we do wild animals—by advocating on their behalf, pushing for their right to life, and
respecting and protecting their habitats? And, more importantly, why should we condemn
all of them because of the sloppy logic that some may face hardship?
That the answer by opponents of TNR to how we stop the cat from being killed is to kill
the cat ourselves is a contradiction that simply cannot be reconciled. But the contradiction
goes deeper. Because while traditional shelters argue that all cats are the same, they
themselves treat them very differently.
In the shelter, the feral cat meets a deadly double-standard. Once there, a friendly cat is
capable of adoption. An “unfriendly” cat, by contrast, is killed outright. The distinction
between the two is real and obvious, and is made daily by the very shelter professionals
who make the claim that all cats are the same and require the same things in order to lead
happy, healthy lives. That is why the traditional alternative to TNR, what they call “Trap-
Remove-Evaluate” is nothing more than a deceptive euphemism for “Trap & Kill” when
it comes to feral cats.
A National No Kill Standard
The No Kill movement’s break with traditional sheltering is less about saving “pet dogs
and cats” and more about focusing on the individual animal. Regardless of whether a
shelter takes in 30, 300, 3,000 or 30,000 dogs and cats each year, No Kill is premised
on—in fact demands—fundamental fairness to individual animals. This commitment is
echoed in the mission statement of virtually every humane society and SPCA in the
country which claims to cherish animals, enforce their rights, and teach compassion. Yet,
these lofty goals can only be achieved if we judge, treat, and devise a plan for shelter
animals individually with all the resources we can muster.
Implicit within the No-Kill philosophy is the understanding that some animals, such as
those who are irremediably suffering or hopelessly ill, will be killed for reasons of mercy.
That much we can all accept. But feral cats do not fit into this category. In its purest
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form, the No Kill gold standard is that we would never end life when that life is not
suffering. And feral cats, as a general rule, are not suffering.
We have surely come a long way in the world of TNR from the point of view that
“ownerless animals must be destroyed. It is as simple as that.” If anything should be
simple, it is this: Unless they are sick or injured, with a poor prognosis for recovery, feral
cats should never be executed. Caveats about location, proximity to wildlife, landowner
opinions, and local ordinances are not relevant to the life and death calculus. They may
play a part in where the cat is released, but not whether he or she should die. A No Kill
plan which does not thoroughly address the unique nature and needs of feral cats and
preserve their lives cannot, by definition, be No Kill.
A No Kill community must include a commitment to TNR. But that is only the first step.
Since feral cats are the offspring of abandoned pets and are thriving, and since—as a
general rule—feral cats are entering shelters relatively healthy and robust, then it is clear
that they are doing well, with or without a caretaker. And while there are counterexamples,
as there are with all animals, this is no reason to enact an unreasonable double
standard for feral cats since we do not advocate death for all friendly stray cats.
Therefore, if TNR in a managed colony is not an option, the compassionate alternative is
to spay/neuter and release even when there is no established feeder. If the feral cat is out
there and appears healthy, we may intervene to spay/neuter to allow feral cats to be better
able to thrive without the biological demands of mating or raising litters. If that too is not
an option, they should be released in another safe place, first with a caretaker but without
one if need be the way we would if a raccoon or other wild animal could no longer safely
remain in a particular location. Finally, if TNR is not an option in any form, the shelter
should not accept feral cats, a course of action no different than a shelter’s refusal to
accept and kill a raccoon or other wild animal because the relinquisher does not want the
animal crossing his yard. It is not ethical to kill healthy feral cats under any
circumstances any more so than we would kill healthy raccoons, foxes, deer, horses,
pigeons or cows.
In the end, a community’s definition of No Kill has to be one where no healthy dog or
cat, no sick or injured but treatable dog or cat, and—without question or compromise—
where no healthy or treatable feral cat is killed. Anything short of that, and the No Kill
movement would be sweeping feral cats under the rug—and would, in fact, not be No
Kill.
Feral Cat Rights
Some groups have cautiously supported TNR in some circumstances and so long as
certain conditions have been met—if the landowner agrees, if there is shelter, if there is
no wildlife predation, if the climate is temperate, if there is a feeder 365 days a year, if
there is licensing, if all the cats are vaccinated regularly. Even some No Kill shelters have
adopted some of these preconditions to the support of TNR. But the true No Kill position
is that while some of these factors may or may not be important for other reasons, they
are utterly irrelevant for purposes of supporting TNR.
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From the No Kill position, the rights of feral cats are self-evident. These may not be legal
rights, but they are fundamental to the No Kill position. And they include the right to life
and the right to live in their habitats. And the right to have the animal welfare community
fight to protect both. This position is no different than our views about habitat protection
for raccoons and other animals.
And that is why our approach to TNR must include a platform which promotes the right
of feral cats to their habitat, wherever that may be, and a right to their very existence,
independent of their relationship to humans. They are animals who share our
communities and whose needs must be accommodated.
After all, it’s their world too.
Caught Between Two Worlds. Just like feral cats occupy a unique niche between
wild and domestic, they also occupy a gray zone in the law. For many cats, their
status as “domestic” animals means certain death in shelters. But wild animals
tend to fare little better.
In those states where it is allowed, wildlife is subjected to trapping, poisoning and
hunting, particularly if they are an unprotected species. Feral cats, in essence, are
caught between two anachronistic world views. If they are legally domestic, they
are subject to mass slaughter in shelters by the humane movement. If they are
legally wild, they are subject to killing by hunting, trapping, and poisoning.
The feral cat, in this case, is a grim reminder of how far we have yet to go—as a
humane movement and as a society.
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