The TNR Method

Welcome to my web essay!

Let us start off by thinking of how many stray cats we’ve seen in the past week… The past month? The past year?

It’s a fairly large number, isn’t it?

So, as you can see, our problem begins with this overwhelming population of free-roaming cats. Let’s bold this statement so we don’t forget it:

Problem: Overpopulation of free-roaming cats

Now, what exactly is a free-roaming cat, you may ask? There are 3 main classifications of free-roaming cats, defined below:

Types of Free Roaming Cats:

• Feral cats: have had little to no contact with humans and live on their own
• Stray cats: tame cats that have been lost or abandoned (have been socialized to humans)
• Owned Indoor/Outdoor Cats: have a home/owner, but still interact with other strays/ferals and wildlife

Now that we know a little more about what we mean when we say “free-roaming cat,” let’s discuss the common circumstances one would find a free-roaming cat, and include some data:

Location and Population of Free Roaming Cats:

• Belong to colonies formed around available food sources (2-15 individuals)
• Highly concentrated in urban environments due to greater opportunities for scavenging/shelter (Huffington Post)
• Number of free-roaming cats per unit of ground in cities is more than 20 times the number of free-roaming cats in rural areas (Huffington Post)
• It is estimated that the number of free-roaming cats in the United States may be equal to that of owned cats, approximately 70 million (NJ Dept. of Health)