{"71102":{"#nid":"71102","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Into the Wild","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIn a community where greater enrollment is often the goal, several members of the Tech community are concerned with keeping their numbers at a status quo.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EConstruction project manager Steven Johnson and utilities analyst Susan Wardrope work to keep feral cats on campus at a sustainable level, all while preventing more from moving in. Together with a network of campus participants, the group works on its own time-and in most cases, its own dime-to alter, monitor and feed these felines.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EA part of Auxiliary Services during his \u0027day\u0027 job, Johnson instills the practice of Trap, Neuter and Release (TNR), which works to equalize rather than eliminate feral cat populations. When animal control officers capture these cats, euthanasia is the typical result, as they are well past the age of human socialization. In doing this, a vacuum is created wherein other feral cats will just move into the area, continuing the cycle.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EHowever, the central TNR theory is that a controlled community of altered cats aids in maintaining area populations and keeping more feral cats from moving in. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022The best advantages to having them altered is that they start to concentrate around the feeding stations, and they don\u0027t have any urge to mate,\u0022 Wardrope said. \u0022They have their food, their sleeping place and their area that they\u0027re familiar with.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022They defend their territory, keeping other cats from moving into the area, which stabilizes the population,\u0022 Johnson said. \u0022An unaltered male will travel up to three miles. An altered cat will only travel about 300 meters.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe program at Tech started in 1996. \u0022We\u0027d get reports of cats in the area,\u0022 said Johnson, who added he discovered students and employees were leaving food for the animals. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EHe said they counted 19 adult and juvenile cats on East Campus in those early days. In the first full feral cat census for the Institute, Johnson said they easily counted 179 cats in late 1998-32 in one colony that lived in the president\u0027s glade. (Today, Johnson says, that colony is down to three occasional visitors.) Now, as far as Johnson and his group can tell, about 34 cats call Tech home, including only two or three unaltered females-which Johnson says he is still trying to trap. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAccording to the duo, 30 to 35 cats on campus is very sustainable. Each feeding station has enough of a colony for one dominant male and one dominant female that protect the territory. This \u0027territorial management practice\u0027 leads to a fairly accurate understanding of where overlap between the colonies exists.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EJohnson and Wardrope work to answer the call-literally-if someone reports a cat on campus. \u0022I\u0027ll go out that night, see if it\u0027s a new cat or one of our own,\u0022 Johnson said. \u0022If it\u0027s a new cat, I\u0027ll try to stake it out and see where it\u0027s going-to established food stations or somewhere else.\u0022 Sometimes, Johnson said, people who don\u0027t know about the campus program put a food dish outside of a building for any \u0027strays\u0027 they see. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIf it is determined that a sighted cat is a new \u0027resident,\u0027 Johnson traps it\u0027s an undertaking that may require several hours of waiting. (\u0022I know all the third-shift police officers by name.\u0022) He keeps the caged animal in his garage overnight and then carries it to the vet the next morning. The cats are neutered or spayed, vaccinated-many for the first time-and dosed with flea control medication. Males are released the following day after surgery. Females are released three days later. For captured kittens, Johnson either finds adoptive families or takes them to no-kill shelters after they are socialized.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Without a feeding program to localize a colony, you\u0027ll continue to have mangy-looking cats that are more susceptible to diseases and other vectors that they can catch.\u0022 But, in what could be seen as a disadvantage in the program, unaltered females tend to have larger litters because of the better nutrition. \u0022When we first started, cats were giving birth to four, where only 50 percent survived. Now they can give birth to a litter of nine, and seven will survive,\u0022 he said.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EOne challenge Johnson and Wardrope have noticed is well-wishers often will leave food out, which aids in diluting established feeding stations. \u0022We leave a note and let them know,\u0022 he said. \u0022We\u0027re trying to get the word out that there is a good program-just by going from 179 to 34 cats shows it-s working.\u0022 \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBut Johnson and Wardrope are by no means acting alone. Roughly 30 people are on his e-mail list, Johnson said, and about six handle the campus-wide feeding stations. Johnson himself handles the heavy lifting: tracking the cats\u0027 movements and trapping them. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022We just started doing this out-of-pocket,\u0022 Johnson said. Through the e-mail network, however, people donated food and money for surgeries beyond spaying and neutering.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe duo\u0027s efforts have led to collaborations outside the Institute. When Fulton County\u0027s Animal Control units respond to an on-campus call, Johnson receives a courtesy call if it\u0027s a cat issue. This in turn has expanded his TNR efforts, establishing partnerships with Fulton, Cobb, Douglas and DeKalb counties.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022It\u0027s a quid pro quo,\u0022 he says. \u0022Fulton County has the Fix \u0027Em Free program. When they found out we were running this initiative at Tech, they offered us use of this program. In exchange, when they have reports of a feral colony somewhere, I\u0027m available to go out and talk to people [about TNR].\u0022 \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIn assisting with feral cat colonies in off-campus communities, Johnson explains the Trap, Neuter and Return philosophy, letting people know the usual fate of a feral animal taken to a shelter. \u0022Once people learn about the program, and Steve offers to take [the cats] in to have them altered and vaccinated, they usually have no problem throwing food out for them,\u0022 Wardrope said.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022I volunteer to support both the Fulton County Animal Services and Catlanta, a local organization that is basically the feral cat coordinator of the Lifeline Animal Project.\u0022 Catlanta recently received a grant to aid in the spaying and neutering of feral cats within the area. It\u0027s a supplement to what Fulton County currently provides, and the group is now in negotiations with DeKalb County to create a similar \u0027Fix \u0027Em Free\u0027 program.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022We\u0027ll help get them spayed or neutered, all of them are vaccinated for rabies [and] they can receive additional vaccinations, if requested,\u0022 Johnson said, adding that almost all counties have a low-cost program that supplements the cost of altering a cat or dog. \u0022I mainly concentrate on the feral cats, and I\u0027ll go out and do the assessment-is it just a backyard colony; or an abandoned cat colony that\u0027s gone feral. Then I\u0027ll report to the agency that\u0027s going to sponsor it \u0027Catlanta [or] Southern Hope.\u0027\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAnd evidence points to TNR reducing the load on animal shelters. Excepting a spike due to foreclosure increases, Johnson said, Fulton County has noticed a marked reduction in the amount of feral cats brought to the shelter. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAccording to Johnson, Atlanta-area programs have attracted the attention of several national organizations, including the Humane Society of the United States and Alley Cat Allies (which fights for TNR protocols nationwide). \u0022We haven\u0027t gotten our city commissions to enact ordinances yet, but we\u0027re working toward that.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ESome organizations, however, oppose the principles of TNR, including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), The Wildlife Society and the American Bird Conservancy. PETA states on its Web site: \u0022Because of the huge number of feral cats and the severe shortage of good homes, the difficulty of socialization, and the dangers lurking where most feral cats live, it may be necessary-and the most compassionate choice-to euthanize feral cats. ... If you leave them where they are, they will almost certainly die a painful death. A painless injection is far kinder than any fate that feral cats will meet if they are left to survive on their own.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EJohnson doesn\u0027t see it that way. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022In a managed colony, human caretakers have just made portions of [the cats\u0027] lives easier by removing the stress of producing multiple litters,\u0022 he said. \u0022By offering a tended food station, caretakers provide a steady supplemental food source, which also permits the cats to be observed for injuries and, when necessary, to be trapped for treatment. A minority of cats specialize in bird hunting as opposed to rodent hunting,\u0022 Johnson concedes. \u0022But rodents are still the main natural prey species of outdoor cats. Just because one might kill a chipmunk or Carolina wren does not mean they, as a species living within a habitat, deserve to be exterminated.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EOverall, Johnson and Wardrope are trying to get the feral cat management plan under way in the metro area, and then slowly branch out to the outlying counties. And he\u0027s been reaching out to other University System of Georgia units. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBut as for Tech, the next steps for the program include establishing the Library and Information Center\u0027s feeding station and then moving further north on campus to the Howey building and the College of Computing. \u0022We\u0027ve gotten reports from the building manager, as well as from the College of Computing, that they\u0027ve seen cats in the area. We\u0027re trying to identify where would be the best place to establish a feeding station.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Tech Colleagues Care for Campus Cat Population"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"Construction project manager Steven Johnson and utilities analyst Susan Wardrope work to keep feral cats on campus at a sustainable level, all while preventing more from moving in.","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Duo works to keep feral cat population at a sustainable level."}],"uid":"27191","created_gmt":"2008-07-30 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:01:15","author":"Robert Nesmith","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2008-07-30T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2008-07-30T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"71103":{"id":"71103","type":"image","title":"Feral cat on feeding station","body":null,"created":"1449177348","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:15:48","changed":"1475894628","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:43:48"},"71104":{"id":"71104","type":"image","title":"Steven Johnson tends to a feeding station","body":null,"created":"1449177348","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:15:48","changed":"1475894628","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:43:48"}},"media_ids":["71103","71104"],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[{"id":"2040","name":"feral cat"},{"id":"2038","name":"neuter and release"},{"id":"166890","name":"sustainability"},{"id":"2039","name":"TNR"},{"id":"2037","name":"trap"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESteven Johnson\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAuxiliary Services\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:steven.johnson@aux.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EContact Steven Johnson\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404-894-1034\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["steven.johnson@aux.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}