How it All Began

This past summer, we were out on a gorgeous summer's evening for a stroll. We passed by the local downtown theatre, and noticed a mama kitty with her kittens playing by a dumpster in the back road way.

That began the odyssey of learning all about feral cats in the city.

Working with a local cat rescue, we went on several "Cat Stakeouts" and learned how to coerce and trap ferals with food. We were lucky that time; all kitties were adoptable and have since found wonderful homes and are doing so well.

In October, when out for a lunchtime stroll; Jay saw two cats huddled near a fence behind a hotel. This was unusual as the area is industrial and is not a spot you would expect to see a mama cat and her kittens.

He started to feed them, and noticed that there weren't just two, like we first thought. Turned out, there was a small colony starting in a very inhospitable area.

Two turned into six and Jay minded them all winter; building shelters for them and providing food and water.

Once they gained enough trust we contacted our cat rescue friends and we have at this point, managed to trap four of the six cats we see. We are hoping the end result is all are adoptable into forever homes after being fixed, vaccinated & microchipped. If they can't be adopted, then at least we will TNR (Trap-Neuter-Release) and keep on minding the colony.

Why?

 Because:

Image courtesy of totalwildlifecontrol.com

(And the fact that we are both suckers for a cute little whiskered face. And we love all animals.
We have a membership at the Toronto Zoo. We do our best to recycle and save the planet. And we're trying very, very hard to be as close to vegetarians as we can. )

 We are documenting the progress of our rehabilitation for the first kitty, Little Miss Zazi.  She will be available for adoption after socialization.
Her litter mate, Jumper, was trapped last week JUST in the nick of time...three days after trapping, she had FOUR new babies of her own.
The male, Taylor, was neutered and is pending evaluation to see if we can rehab him or release back to the colony.
Unfortunately, the female thought to be their Mama cat had to be euthanized after trapping. She was very sick with infections and it was better that she was not suffering.

What can the average person do?

Spay. Neuter.

Help where you can to control feral cat populations.

Feed/Shelter Strays during inclement/winter weather.

Donate to your local shelter/rescue.

As we develop this blog we will post links about rescues, updates and other info about ferals around the GTA/Peel Region.