Cats of Davidson exists to end the suffering of unwanted and abandoned cats in Davidson, N.C.
02/20/2025
This is such an important read. Why do we eartip feral cats? THIS is why.
Skipping the Ear Tip. Is This a Dealbreaker?
** This is a follow up post to yesterdays ear tip post giving a real life example of the problems encountered when you don't ear tip a colony. **
Marianne contacted trapper “Joan” when the 2 stray cats she fed became 35 in just 18 months. She could afford to feed a few cats, but not 35 and certainly NOT the 100+ cats she would soon have if they weren’t fixed before kitten season. But she was adamant that these cats NOT be ear tipped. She felt it was wrong to “mutilate their ears.” Trapper Joan explained the purpose of ear tips, reassured her that it wasn’t painful and let her know that the spay surgery and rabies vaccines would be free if the cats were ear tipped. Nope, she was not going to allow them to be ear tipped!
Although frustrated, the Joan knew that there would be multiple litters in the next few months if they weren’t fixed. This site was close to her home and she had vouchers that would reimburse her costs if she DIDN’T eat tip. She decided to honor their wishes and not have the ears tipped. And this is what happened.
Everything started well. Joan trap-trained ahead of time with traps zip-tied in the open position. She made appointments to get all the cats fixed over several days of appointments. Since they wouldn’t allow ear tipping, she planned to hold them longer so the fixed cats wouldn’t be released until ALL had been trapped. It seemed like a solid plan.
On day one, 18 cats were quickly trapped and another 11 went in the next day. However, it was now apparent that this was NOT a colony of 35 cats. Most of the cats were solid gray or solid black and there should have been only 6 cats left. She could see at LEAST 15 cats on day 3 and a few of the known tomcats had not shown up at all. Joan trapped another 6 cats, but didn’t have appointments for the rest. Since she didn’t have the space to hold over 35 cats for weeks, she had to make the tough decision to release the altered cats a few days later.
Joan managed to get more appointments a couple weeks later and started trapping again. In the first group of cats she brought in, three had already been altered. She did her best to check ahead of time, but this is difficult when you have feral cats in traps. Three appointments were wasted. Trapping again, she ended up with more already-altered cats. Over the course of several months, she tried to trap more of them, but at least 8 of them remained unaltered. Two of those cats had babies over the next few months. Joan looked for the kittens hoping to grab them and use them as bait to get their feral moms. But there were 10 million hiding spots. By the time the kittens showed up, her foster space was over capacity and they were too feral to get into a rescue.
Fast forward a year and this is the state of the colony. 34 cats were fixed at a cost of over $1,200. (A few had been fixed free by another vet or the cost would have been closer to $2,000.) At least 8 of the remaining cats had never been trapped and several had a litter or two over the next year. The colony size had nearly doubled and they were not doing well because Marianne couldn’t afford to feed them all. And now she was planning to move out of the area. Of course she called Joan to see if she would “take the cats and find them a good home.”
Joan was so frustrated and depressed with this endless site that she decided to work on other sites. She didn’t feel that this site was a good use of her time because she could get so many more cats fixed starting fresh on a new colony.
Not finishing a site is taboo in rescue because the population will quickly rebound. And without ear tips, it is nearly impossible to know which feral cats are altered. Appointments are wasted, resources are squandered and the already altered cats are stressed from unnecessary re-trapping and transport to the clinic.
We’ve all encountered people who want us to fix the cats but NOT ear tip. And this can be a reasonable request if there are just a few cats and they are easily recognized due to their unique color patterns or other physical features. But if you are doing a large colony, skipping the tip is a dealbreaker. It is likely to result in an incomplete trapping, continued colony growth and a ridiculous amount of work trying to trap a few unidentifiable cats in an sea of cats who are already fixed.
