As soon as school let out at the end of May, I wanted to get a TNR project underway. Considering we are already well into "kitten season", I wanted to move fast. I teamed up with Shawn, of North Brooklyn Cats, to tackle a few colonies that have been keeping us up at night.
One was the back yard of a fabric store in Astoria.
This guy, Fluffy, was already neutered, he lives inside the store.
The owner says he walked in the store from the back yard one day
and he's been the friendly store greeter ever since!
Here we TNR'd 5 adults and took in 2 kittens.
These cats are well taken care of and loved dearly by the owners of the store.
They were all gorgeous too!
Tweed
Silk
Gabardine
Angora
And the 2 little ones are Burlap and Dungaree!
(They will be fostered by me, Big City Little Kitty,
until they find their new forever home)
Next on our list was a parking lot in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
We picked up 4 males (big ones) and 2 females.
The males are...
Impala
Humvee
Chevelle
Charger
And the females...
Shelby
And shy little Saab
Then we got a couple from some partially TNR'd colonies;
Calendula from Greenpoint
and Kiddo from Astoria
So that put us up to 13, but we needed 20
to fill our minimum 20 slots for the clinic to provide transport.
So we opened it up to other trappers and rescuers in the area.
We added 2 kittens found in someone's back yard,
a mom and her 3 kittens trapped in Queens,
and this little cutie found in someone's back yard in Queens, Peggy.
She already had a home lined up at this point and just needed to by spayed:)
Off to the clinic they went!
And 20 cats/kittens were returned to me spayed, neutered and healthy!
Ferals were released and friendlies were returned
And then there were none
We'd like to thank the person that sponsored this project,
the person that let us use their space to hold and recover the cats,
Lisa for helping us get set up
and Alan for helping with trapping, recovery and clean up!
It was a lot of work, but well worth the effort!
More pictures and more of their stories can be found on my Flickr Photostream:
If you are doing TNR in your area please send me your story and pics!
I would love to share it!
If you want to perform TNR in NYC, take the TNR Workshop hosted by Neighborhood Cats
Here you will learn the how, what, where, when and why of TNR and feral cat colony management!
The New York City Feral Cat Initiative is another resource
When you are ready to begin, you may need help with funding. Never underestimate the power of a community bake sale! Have one at your local pet store, on your block, at the bar, wherever they will let you set up! You can also set up something like a Chip In for people to help! Share what you are doing on Facebook and Twitter, you may even find some volunteers to help!
Good luck out there!
