Cat Lovers and RIOC Agree On Trap-Neuter-Return Plan
by Jennifer Dunning

You have to look carefully to see the abandoned cats of Roosevelt Island. A shadow racing against a wall. A pair of yellow eyes peering through a crack. But some cats have been able to make homes for themselves and even get to know the Island’s other residents. Pretty Kuri and Tomas the amiable moocher are cases in point, having lived in the Roosevelt Island Community Gardens for three and four years respectively, in an established colony of about eight cats.

To some, the cats are beloved gardening companions with names and vivid personalities. To others, they are a nuisance – or worse. Now Island cats and the humans they charm or offend will benefit from an agreement reached by the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation and Island Cats, a recently formed rescue and adoption group, to trap, neuter and return the cats to live out their natural lives in their own managed colonies, the equivalent of extended families that keep intruders out, with human caretakers who feed and bring them water regularly and keep their food and wintering shelters clean. The Island initiative is part of a nationwide program called Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR).

In a cordial meeting this month with Vice President Catherine Johnson of RIOC and an aide, RIOC gave its blessing to Island participation in the TNR program, which is endorsed by organizations including the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals and Alley Cat Allies in Washington, D.C. The project was to begin in the gardens and one of six other feral cat colonies scattered around the Island. But, because of scheduling problems and complaints about feces and dead birds in garden plots, Island Cats has moved immediately into the Community Gardens, with only four cats left to neuter. Seven of eight new garden kittens have been trapped and are in foster or permanent homes.

Further work is expected to be completed this summer in collaboration with Neighborhood Cats and the ASPCA. Volunteers will be needed for a variety of tasks, and can sign up with Island Cats at ripyy@care2.com to work with the cats or on administrative tasks.

Most cats are abandoned unneutered, ensuring continuing generations of feral cats. The problem was made worse this past year by the suspension of the City’s only affordable spay-neuter clinic (now back in operation) and by migration south and into the gardens by cats displaced by construction. But TNR is considered by experts in the United States and Europe to be the only effective way of reducing feral (born outdoors) and stray (abandoned domestic) cat populations. Removal to shelters or relocation to other areas is not a viable alternative, according to Jane Hoffman, an animal rights lawyer and the president of the Mayor’s Alliance.

For one thing, Hoffman said, emptied areas do not remain empty for long and will not on Roosevelt Island. "If you try to remove the cats, other cats will take their place," she said. "That’s just the way it works. The colony is the best way to control the number. It’s a humane way to reduce the population. These are also residents of the Island and it seems rather meanspirited to try to remove them when there are very simple ways to control any problems people perceive there to be." In addition, she said, some actions are illegal in New York State or would be subject to intense scrutiny by the ASPCA’s humane law enforcement division. "People should be careful, because they may be facing either a felony or misdemeanor cruelty charge, depending on how they handle this."

Individuals and Island Cats rescuers have been successful over the years in socializing feral kittens and a handful of adults, preparing them for human contact in understanding adoptive homes. But, Ms. Hoffman said, even the best-intentioned shelters cannot find homes for cats that have lived a long time out of doors, whether feral or stray. "First of all, we are still killing an enormous number of wonderful domesticated house cats in our shelters today," she said, putting the number in the thousands each year. "Feral cats have no chance of being adopted in a shelter. Their fate is being killed, is euthanasia."

(More information on TNR, relocation and simple ways of keeping cats at bay is available from www.animalalliancenyc.org and www.neighborhoodcats.org. Photos of the garden cats by Kurt Wittman may be seen on www.nyc10044.com/cats and will soon be viewable at www.islandcats.org, where there are also pictures of cats available for adoption or fostering and a Kids’ Page for children’s stories and drawings of their pets.)