If anyone here is a true animalaterian they would take the time to teach these poor, homeless cats to read ! That way we can treat them like people and make them obey the laws we superior people have to obey.

Got a problem with that, easy now, they can start their own support groups. As an aside they could picket Ol Joe’s Parking Garage. Then the world will be as it would.

And I say again…..no one is doing any favors to these cats by feeding them without ALSO doing the above. If you do, you are only adding to the problem by helping to increase the population, which makes it all the more difficult for those of us who are trying to DECREASE it.

did you contact the ASPCA or an SPCA? here (NYC), i’m pretty sure the ASPCA is free for ferals, check their site. also free for low income families. those that can pay (the rest of the city :) ) pay $25. My LL maintains the few ferals we have, i make sure they are s/n via the ASPCA van. ASPCA is not a national shelter though and aren’t connected with other SPCA’s. they do have sister cities for promoting no-kill, so if you are in one of those cities, there may be an option.

my 2 oldest cats are from a litter back when i first moved in :) believe me, that’s not something i could do every season! we haven’t had any kittens for about 6 yrs now. once the females are fixed, males tend to go elsewhere. and new ones that do show up, don’t always stick around. we have the same crew for sometime now. must be the pasta my LL serves up with their kibble, lol!~

By putting up signs in parking lots, perhaps?

Do you want everyone to boycott that parking garage:

Because someone (maybe a customer, maybe just a passerby) put up signs threatening to poison the cats?

Because there are stray or feral cats living in the garage?

Because you don’t like parking garages?

Because you don’t like Don Earl?

Or what?

Property owners are well within their rights to not want feral cats on their property, and it is illegal (not to mention morally unethical) to put food out for them on property that does not belong to the person doing the feeding.

I would tend to question the practice of feeding ferals on someone else’s property though. Not everyone likes cats. I feed ferals, but it’s on my property and no inconvenience to anyone else.

On Dee’s comment about cats biting someone?! That’s quite obviously the comment of someone that doesn’t have a fuzzy clue about feral cats. Ferals are so incredibly shy that it often takes months to get within 20 feet of one.

RonnieRoo’s comments basically describe the struggle with trying to help ferals. There aren’t any good anwsers and no quick fixes. For every one you try to help, a hundred halfwits abandon a pet that hasn’t been fixed to turn wild. TNR programs are great in theory, but good luck trying to catch them or getting much help if you do.

The compromise I came up with where I used to live, when I was feeding several feral females, was to catch the kittens and take them to a no kill shelter for adoption. The moms would bring the babies up to the food dish when they got to be about six weeks old, and they were usually so hungry, I could reach through the door and pick them up while they were concentrating on eating.

There are a lot of good sites online with information about ferals, but no easy solutions. It’s estimated that in the US the feral cat population roughly equals the pet cat population. It’s another one of those areas where I think public information programs offered by local shelters would do more to help than anything else.

Discourage groups of feral cats (by not putting food out), and trap/vaccinate/deworm/sterilize/and relocate those that can be.

All animals need to learn to go to where the food is, not be taught that it will be brought to them with no effort on their part. That’s what keeps nature’s intended food chain in proper balance. Interfering with one section of it throws all the rest of it out of kilter.