Evaluating A Community Cat Management Program In Japan
Stray cat populations pose an issue for a number of reasons, including the fact that they can hunt local wild animals and spread zoonoses. Their quality of life on the streets can also be poor. There are a number of different approaches to managing free-roaming cat populations, but there is no “perfect” solution. In countries with very high numbers of stray cats and overpopulated shelters, euthanization is typically the most common approach.
An alternative approach is to manage cat populations while allowing them to continue living on the streets. Stray cats may be trapped, neutered, and released — or they might be vaccinated or medically treated at the same time. These approaches are known as Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) and Trap-Test-Vaccinate-Alter-Return-Monitor (TTVARM). The goal is to reduce the number of free-roaming cats in a community without killing them. Further, by vaccinating stray cats, their quality of life can be improved, and the risk of zoonotic disease is reduced.
However, there is mixed evidence about how effective TNR and TTVARM methods are at managing stray cat populations. The researchers of this study assessed the Community Cat Program (CCP), a TTVARM scheme run by the Japanese government to reduce the number of community cats while improving individual cat welfare. The program operates under the assumption that neutered cats will remain in their colonies for life, while unneutered cats won’t enter a new colony. However, the authors questioned whether this assumption is true.
Over a period of four years, researchers observed CCP cats in an area of Hiroshima called “the town of cats.” They tracked different population dynamics, including how far cats traveled and how long they stayed in the area after being neutered.
The study found that most of the neutered cats (11 out of 30 tracked cats) left the area after a year, while 13 unneutered cats moved in. This suggests free-roaming cat colonies are unstable in their populations, which can potentially render the CCP efforts to neuter and care for individual cats ineffective. Even so, the authors also point out that the number of cats euthanized in local shelters fell during the study period.
Another challenge that the researchers noted involved the CCP volunteers. CCP relies on community members to care for cats who are TTVARM’ed (versus outside volunteers), but many of these community members in Hiroshima are growing older and becoming less able to care for cats. As homes become vacant as a result of the aging population, this also provides abandoned locations for stray cats to breed.
It’s important to remember that this is a single case study of one location where the CCP was enacted. In other words, it’s possible that the program was more effective in other locations, perhaps with more diverse community support. Nevertheless, the results suggest areas of improvement for the CCP program — as well as important things to keep in mind in any TTVARM or TNR initiative. For example, these methods require enough volunteers to manage them effectively, and areas that stray cats use for breeding (such as empty houses) need to be blocked off. By doing this, the authors hypothesize that the issues created by shifting stray cat populations might be limited.
For animal advocates, this study shows that alternatives to euthanization and animal shelters are not flawless and need to be properly designed in order to be effective. It’s also important to ensure communities have ongoing support and resources beyond the initial program launch.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10888705.2021.1901226