Kingston, Ontario TNVR program will now cover feral, community and stray cats

The loss of Spay Neuter Kingston Initiative who stopped administering the TNVR program on January 1 has left those wanting to help the ferals shorthanded. This PoC article (opens in new window) from February will bring you up to date with the City of Kingston (Ontario) program.

feral cat
Feral cat photo Heather Patterson
Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats

The City of Kingston (Ontario) has three groups interested in the continuation of the Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate and Return (TNVR) program for feral cats in the area.

The candidates to partner with the Spay Neuter Kingston Initiative are The Forgotten Ferals, Kingston Animal Rescue and For the Love of Ferals. City council will be asked Tuesday to allow the partnership for the remainder of 2019.

Close to 400 cats from 25 colonies were helped during the past three years. The city contributes $25,000 annually to the program and until now have only covered feral cats meaning they can only help cats who have had too little human contact to consider being adoptable.

The new program will allow each group to access the funds on a first come, first served basis and will include ‘community cats.’ Since feral, stray and community cats will all be eligible to dip into the city funds, the TNVR program will make a bigger dent in the kitten-making problem in Kingston.

Kingston, Ontario

No longer will all cats be returned to the colony. Hopefully, a good number will be docile enough to be adopted out or at least go into a barn cat program.

Lanie Hurdle, acting chief administrative officer, confirmed this in an interview with The Whig

“However, with the new ‘community cat’ definition and expanded scope, stray cats or kittens will be trapped/neutered/vaccinated under the City of Kingston-supported TNVR mandate, and then returned or placed in fostering, adoption or barn programs, depending on the disposition of each individual cat.”

While the program will cover TNVR costs, the animal welfare groups will be responsible for any care beyond the program.

Including ‘community cats’ is a major step forward in curbing the cat population. It’s distressing for a caregiver to be unable to include strays in a TNR program simply because the cat obviously had/has a home.

It will be interesting to follow the Kingston program because it could prove to be a model and humane program in helping the unwanted and the abandoned and not just the cats born too wild to be considered adoptable.

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