Ferals, Strays and Barn Cats

The Columbian Blogs 25 April 2016: "You’ve seen them around, cats that seem to have no home and may be skittish towards you. These are cats that have either lost their home and have to fend for their self or they were born in the wild. These are usually called stray or feral cats. A stray cat is one that has been socialized to people at some point in her life, but has left or lost her domestic home, as well as most human contact and dependence. A feral cat may never have had any contact with humans or her contact was minimal. She is fearful of people and survives on her own outdoors. You can often find colonies of these cats around out-buildings on country property. They are sometimes called barn cats or farm cats.

When not properly taken care of, they can live miserable lives. Over population, diseases and predators are some of the dangers that these cats face. But people are often the biggest danger to these cats. People get upset with the number of cats on their property and they shoot, poison, drown or torture the cats. Some will trap the cats and take them to the..." read on

Feral Cat Colonies Help Manage Outdoor Cats

thestar.com 17 March 2016: Toronto Humane Society’s Barn Cat program helps manage local feral population, but some worry about the effects on other species. Standing in the back of a building’s off-loading station in a Caledon industrial park, Lorena Rossi and Francesca Cicca de Marco blow kisses at two cats sitting warily on the other side of a fence.

Teddy and Cheddar are half of one of the feral cat colonies Rossi takes care of. It’s a way of managing the seemingly ever-growing and roaming outdoor cat populations. By setting up feeding stations and small insulated shelters, the pair says, the territorial cats establish a colony.

They don’t reproduce, either. Rossi’s feral cat colonies in Caledon are part of “trap, neuter, return” (TNR) programs, which the City of Toronto has endorsed. Businesses in the industrial parks call Rossi to have cats that have found shelter in...read on.