A cat named Churro, up for adoption at Pasadena Humane on June 24, 2024.
(
Monica Bushman / LAist
)
Topline:
The combination of more people taking summer vacations and the height of kitten season — the time of year when cats are most fertile — means shelters and rescue organizations are overwhelmed.
Why it matters: There are, according to LA Animal Services, about 960,000 “community cats” living throughout the city. These are free-roaming, stray cats that are also described as “feral” or “unsocialized.
These free-roaming cats are a part of life in any city, but it's easy for populations to get out of control if not managed.
That’s where TNR, or "trap-neuter-return," comes in — a practice that is designed to reduce the number of cats on the street over time, help them live healthier lives and be less of a nuisance to their human neighbors.
Some cities (like L.A.) support TNR efforts — by providing traps and spay/neuter appointments or vouchers to cover part of the cost — and some don’t. But either way, the work it involves can be overwhelming for those who take it on.
What you can do to help:
Contact your local shelter or cat rescue organization and ask what's needed. Right now, people who can foster kittens, even for a short time, are especially needed. You can also volunteer in other ways, or make a donation.
If you find kittens who seem to be abandoned (more information on this here from Pasadena Humane), Dr. Kate Hurley with the UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program suggests: "See what resources you can access or what resources the shelter has, and do your best. That's a great contribution if you can help keep even one cat or kitten out of the shelter so that they can have room for one that has absolutely no other choice."
Finally, consider adopting! There are many cats and kittens available this time of year from shelters and other local organizations.
If you follow any cat rescue groups online, you know this time of year is rough.
“9 times out of 10 your garage, bathroom or basement can save a life.”
“This is an urgent plea for fosters to… help out during the 2 most challenging months of the year.”
The combination of more people taking summer vacations and the height of kitten season — the time of year when cats are most fertile — means organizations are overwhelmed trying to find fosters to care temporarily for rescues, trappers available to catch them and vets able to spay/neuter and vaccinate cats. It’s a difficult time for animal shelters too.
“So if you find kittens, if your neighbor finds kittens, if you find a cat, see what resources you can access or what resources the shelter has, and do your best,” says Dr. Kate Hurley, director of the Koret Shelter Medicine Program at UC Davis. “That's a great contribution if you can help keep even one cat or kitten out of the shelter so that they can have room for one that has absolutely no other choice.”
L.A.’s ‘community cats’
There are, according to LA Animal Services, about 960,000 “community cats” living throughout the city. These are free-roaming, stray cats that are often described as “feral” or “unsocialized."
(“Community cats” has become the preferred terminology among many animal welfare organizations because some of these cats can be more socialized than others.)
These free-roaming cats are a part of life in any city, but it's easy for populations to get out of control if not managed. Cats reproduce quickly. A female cat can have three litters per year, with the average litter being about four kittens. And cats as young as four months old can get pregnant.
#298: Did you know that we are in the middle of kitten season? It's a super busy time for shelter workers, cat rescues, and the many Angelenos who volunteer their time to help save cats.
Today we're talking about those folks and what’s being done in L.A. and OC to try to improve the lives of free-roaming cats in Southern California.
Guests: Marisol Ramos, Boyle Heights Cats; Dr. Kate Hurley, Koret Shelter Medicine Program at UC Davis; Meredith Kirby, OC Community Cats
What is TNR?
UC Davis’ Kate Hurley is also a leading authority on “trap, neuter and return” (or TNR) — a practice that is designed to reduce the number of cats on the street over time, help them live healthier lives and be less of a nuisance to their human neighbors.
The process involves cats being trapped (in rectangular wire cages that shut behind the cat when they enter) and taken to a shelter or clinic to be spayed/neutered and vaccinated for infectious diseases. During the process, one of the cats’ ears is “tipped” so they are identifiable as having been fixed after they are returned to their outdoor homes.
The result, Hurley says, are cats that are less likely to fight, spray and roam. It’s also considered a more practical and humane option than trapping and euthanizing cats, but it does have its critics.
Some cities and counties support TNR efforts — by providing traps and spay/neuter appointments or vouchers to cover part of the cost — and some don’t.
Still, even in the places where there is government support, the amount of work that volunteers take on to save cats and do TNR can be daunting.
The cat crusaders
Christopher Askew (L) and Marisol Ramos (R) outside a L.A. business where workers have been feeding about a dozen community cats.
(
Monica Bushman / LAist
)
On a warm Thursday afternoon in April, around the start of this year’s kitten season, Marisol Ramos of “Boyle Heights Cats” (“Boyle Heights Gatos” on Instagram) was already fielding many more requests for help than she could handle.
“Today I got like seven [requests] in the last three hours from people saying, ‘Help, I need to get this cat fixed.’ And it's just adding up. I have about 600 cats on a list that need to get fixed.”
Ramos’s focus is mainly Boyle Heights, where she lives, and surrounding neighborhoods. She started doing TNR in L.A. in 2021, and has since helped get more than 1,000 cats spayed or neutered.
What’s involved is a lot of communication with cat feeders and potential fosters, early mornings and late nights setting out traps and waiting for them to work, time spent fundraising for supplies and food, and the effort it takes to find spay/neuter appointments and vets that will accept vouchers the city of L.A. offers through the Citywide Cat Program. Then, when cats have been fixed, she’s back 24-48 hours later to pick them up.
Ramos does all this in addition to her day job as a researcher and grant administrator. At first she took on a second job to pay for her TNR work, but has since formed a 501(c)(3) and received a small grant.
She started doing TNR with her family in New York when she was 15 years old.
“We learned about TNR,” Ramos says, “did a community training and certification, and then we would take the subway to the city to get them fixed.”
The ‘front lines’
Now Ramos trains other people to do TNR work. Christopher Askew is one of them. He worked at a cat rescue/sanctuary and while he found that work fulfilling, he says, “it was kind of like being at an Army hospital, way back behind the enemy lines or something … [Doing TNR] is more like being right out in the front lines on the street where there's not enough being done for street cats.”
He lives in downtown L.A. and plans to do trapping there: “Downtown seems like it needs a lot of help and there's not really many people covering it. So hopefully I can maybe help fill that gap.”
Askew joined Ramos out on a call out to a business near railroad tracks, where workers were feeding about a dozen cats, to learn about what it takes to do TNR.
Marisol Ramos with Boyle Heights Cats takes a photo of some community cats she'd been called out to TNR.
(
Monica Bushman / LAist
)
Ramos had been able to secure three spay/neuter appointments for the next day, so she was there with three traps and wet food to lure the cats in. She’d be back on Saturday to hopefully trap seven more that she’d take to appointments at a spay/neuter clinic on Sunday.
She also spends time finding adopters for kittens and other cats that can’t be returned to where they came from — if, for example, they’re sick and by the time they recover they’ve been away from the streets for too long.
But for all the work involved in doing TNR in L.A., Ramos said the situation in Orange County is much harder.
TNR is designed to reduce the number of cats on the street over time, help them live healthier lives and be less of a nuisance to their human neighbors.
(
Monica Bushman / LAist
)
In Orange County there isn’t a large animal welfare organization doing TNR or providing low-cost vouchers. The county-run shelter doesn’t provide vouchers either, and stopped its TNR program in 2020.
In June of 2023, a Grand Jury report called on Orange County to reinstate its TNR program, saying that ending the program “increased the rate of euthanasia of cats, especially kittens.”
In a response to LAist, OC Animal Care said they’ve “been advised by counsel that the release of unowned cats into the community is prohibited by law. Since not all municipalities share this same understanding, we continue to monitor litigation processes happening around the state for rulings that may impact the penal code.”
OC Animal Care also faced a threat of legal action over their TNR program by detractors of trap-neuter-return and, more recently, was sued by supporters of TNR, who want the program reinstated. In reference to the litigation, OC Animal Care told LAist: “It is widely acknowledged that TNR plays an important role in animal welfare, and we, like the local community, look forward to clear direction on this issue, whether it be through resolution of the pending litigation or a legislative fix at the state level.”
On the question of whether TNR violates of the section of the California penal code that prohibits animal abandonment, the city of L.A.’s position is that “abandonment laws, defined by intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence leaving an animal behind, do not apply to community cat practices.”
“I've met a lot of folks from Orange County who drive up to Sun Valley to fix the cats because they just couldn't find appointments in Orange County, or help there,” Ramos says. “Or they drive to San Diego, but they try to trap a lot so it's worth their time.”
The cats of Orange County
Meredith Kirby, the volunteer coordinator for OC Community Cats, says, “When we had the shelter as a resource, that was great, because it didn't cost anything.”
Kirby has been with the nonprofit organization since it was founded in 2015. They feed and care for about 25 community cat colonies in North Orange County, which includes doing TNR and providing medical care.
In addition to the volunteer work Kirby does, she also works as a high school ceramics teacher.
In the almost 10 years she’s been with OC Community Cats, Kirby says the situation has gotten much more difficult — largely because the county shelter ended its TNR program, but also because of the shuttering of some low-cost veterinary clinics they used to rely on. There’s also a shortage of veterinarians that has grown worse.
As a result, Kirby says they’re forced to rely on donations and have to find workarounds to get cats fixed outside Orange County.
“Our transport team is a lot of retired people,” mostly women, Kirby says, who “can take 10 to 15 cats up to L.A. in the morning and go pick them up.”
But the shortage of vets is a problem in L.A. too, and across the country.
Not enough vets and vet techs
A kitten named Blizzard, up for adoption at Pasadena Humane on June 24, 2024.
(
Monica Bushman
)
Hurley with the Koret Shelter Medicine Program at UC Davis says the shortage of veterinarians didn’t start with the pandemic, but COVID did exacerbate it.
“The fewer vets there are, the harder it is, the more burnout there is, the more vets leave,” Hurley says. “And we're really in a negative cycle, it feels like right now, where the few vets that are standing are really stretched thin.”
That in turn has had an impact on spay/neuter rates.
“Spay/neuter in general took a huge hit during the early days of COVID,” Hurley says. “And it not only hasn't caught up, it hasn't even recovered to the baseline level that it was operating at before COVID in most places, in my experience.”
Chris Ramon, who heads up the Community Cats Program at Pasadena Humane, says another issue is a shortage of veterinary technicians and registered veterinary technicians (or RVTs).
“I have seen some of the most talented surgeons who can do a cat neuter in probably 20 seconds, no exaggeration,” Ramon says. But without a support team of technicians to help with surgery prep, anesthetization and recovery, “that veterinarian who can do a 20 second neuter is now investing 10 or 12 minutes into one case.”
The longer an appointment takes, that means fewer cats overall who can be fixed.
What can you do to help?
Even with the shortage of vets, technicians and the lack of support for TNR in some cities and counties, those who work to care for cats on Southern California streets say there are things you can do to help if you would like to get involved.
For one thing, Ramon says people often overestimate the amount of space that’s needed to foster cats and kittens. Even a bathroom, when you think about it, he says, “is a penthouse compared to a kennel at a shelter.”
There’s also lots of opportunities to volunteer or donate if fostering (or adopting) isn’t something you think will work for you.
Meredith Kirby with OC Community Cats says her number one request to those who’d like to help cats in their community is “be somebody who does something.”
“If you see an animal in need, help it. Don't go on Facebook or Instagram and go, ‘Oh, I saw this cat … Somebody go save it.’ You're somebody,” Kirby says. “If you don't know what to do, reach out to some of the local nonprofits and ask for guidance.”
Editor's note: This post has been updated to add information about the nature of the lawsuits that have been brought against OC Animal Care.
Additional resources for helping 'community cats'
FixNation, based in LA, provides free medical and spay/neuter services for community cats and some limited low-cost services for pet cats
