Course Description

Feral cats, the wild descendants of domestic house cats, now number in the tens of millions in the United States and can be found in every possible setting – urban, rural and suburban.  Left unmanaged, they reproduce rapidly, contributing to the overall cat overpopulation crisis and sometimes posing a nuisance for local residents.  Whether they live in backyards, factories, parks or alleyways, feral cats have become a pressing issue in most communities.

This course will teach you how to help solve the problem by using the Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) approach to managing feral cat colonies.  This innovative technique involves trapping the cats in a colony, having them neutered, vaccinated against rabies and marked for identification, and returning them to their territory.  A caretaker then provides regular food and shelter and monitors the colony over time.  With TNR, the cats’ reproductive capacity is eliminated, leading to a gradual decline in their numbers, and nuisance behavior is substantially reduced.

The course will describe each step in the TNR process in detail, including working with neighbors and the community at large, feeding, setting up adequate shelter, arranging for spay/neuter, trapping (including preparations, equipment and techniques), caring for the cats while they’re confined, and other feral cat issues like rabies, wildlife and relocation.  In addition, the course will discuss why TNR works to reduce feral cat numbers and why other methods, such as trap and remove, have failed.

By the end of the course, you will be intimately familiar with both the theory and practical application of Trap-Neuter-Return.

Schedule

This is a self-paced course. You log on at your convenience to read the course materials, take quizzes, and submit any other assignments. Most students complete this course within a few weeks.