Clinic Helps Homeless Cat Population

Some homeless cats are ferals that have never known human contact. Others are strays that once had homes but then were abandoned or otherwise lost to the streets.

Veterinarians and others concerned about the homeless cat population in Worcester, Grafton and beyond prefer another term: “Community cats.’’

The term fits because these cats are a “community problem,’’ said Emily McCobb, assistant professor and director of the shelter medicine program at Tufts University

And the community can work together, she believes, to help reach the ultimate goal: Providing every cat with a good home.

One way that advocates hope that will happen, she said, is by ensuring that free-roaming cats do not continue to reproduce. That way, the population will diminish by attrition.

Tufts veterinary students are doing their part to help alleviate the problem.

The school hosts 10 clinics spay/neuter clinics a year, including a “Super Clinic’’ held Sunday on campus. Sunday’s event aimed to spay or neuter 100 cats.

In addition to McCobb, at least six veterinarians, more than 30 students and many community volunteers, led by Elizabeth Evans and Nancy Meyer, participated in the effort.

The program includes trapping free-roaming cats two days before the event, then spaying them on Sunday on the Cummings School’s Grafton campus. The cats are eventually treated, then released to the area they were trapped, in an effort known as "trap, neuter, release.''

Roughly half of the cats were rounded up from Worcester’s Main South neighborhood, targeted by the Spay Worcester project as an area with a particular abundance of unaltered stray cats. The balance will be brought in from throughout Worcester County.

Grafton may be a small town, but it faces “a pretty big problem’’ with free-roaming cats, McCobb said. The sizable amount of rural area and the “blur between suburban and urban’’ makes the problem particularly acute there.

Westborough, by contrast, does not seem to have such a significant population, she said.

The clinic’s work was distributed among three surgical sites on the campus—the Luke and Lily Lerner Spay/Neuter Clinic, the on-campus wet lab and the Catmobile, the mobile, low-cost spay/neuter unit run by the Merrimack River Feline Rescue and housed in Grafton. Fourth-year veterinary students performed the surgeries under the supervision of faculty veterinarians.

The cats are examined, spayed or neutered and treated for feline distemper, rabies, ear mites, ticks and fleas. The veterinary staff then removes the tip of the cat’s ear, which is a universal sign that a free-roaming cat has been spayed or neutered.

All of this work is done while the cat is under anesthesia. The cats are given anesthesia while still in the cages and are returned to the cage while they are still under anesthesia. Because these cats generally do not interact with people, they are not handled while they are awake.

If a cat is determined to be sick or suffering, it will be euthanized. But this is rare, she said.

The cats tend to be “in pretty good shape’’ because people, both individually or through animal advocacy organization, are usually feeding them.

When the cats are awake and ready to be released, they are returned to the area where they were trapped.

Spay/neutering makes a particular difference this time of year, she said.

“Spring and summer is a tough time for kittens,’’ she said. “We want to get a jump on it before summer comes.’’