Strategies that prevent pregnancy without requiring surgery could improve the health of free-living cats
By THIS IS A PREVIEW.to access the full article.Already purchased this issue?Feral cats hang out in an alley.
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When I was a veterinary student, I sometimes found a big orange cat sunning himself on my front porch at the end of my workday. He always ambled away as soon as he saw me—not a panicked dash, because he was used to humans—but he certainly was not going to let me get close enough to pet him. No one owned this cat, although my next-door neighbors sometimes fed him, and he clearly lived in the neighborhood; he and my dogs knew one another well, interacting loudly across the fence.
He was a feral cat, otherwise known as a community cat. He probably lived in a small colony, and indeed I sometimes saw several other individuals around. This orange cat seemed to have a pretty good life, which is often true for cats living in colonies that get some food and other care from people. His life, however, was liable to be shorter than that of an owned cat; during my tenure in that neighborhood, I took two badly injured community cats to the local veterinary hospital for euthanasia. (As the area's veterinary student, I found that one of my de facto responsibilities was dealing with felines that had been hit by cars or attacked by other animals.)
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