Please sign this petition to ensure post-surgery cats and kittens are never abandoned in unfamiliar territory where their lives are put at risk.

The Rancho Cucamonga Animal Shelter is not returning cats in their Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) program back to their home territory.  The current practice exposes cats and kittens in the TNR program to unfamiliar territories without known food sources and facing new threats - all while they are still recovering from surgery.

My family and I are deeply invested in the welfare of our local animal community. We participated in the TNR program run by the Rancho Cucamonga Animal Shelter for the welfare of the cats under our care and the health of our neighborhood.  Through numerous calls with the shelter, we agreed that the family of cats we loved and cared for would be returned to us post-surgery for further care.

However, these vulnerable creatures - including four kittens barely three months old - were abandoned 0.5 miles from their home territory in the middle of the winter and rains.  A few days after release, one of the kitten was found 1.5 miles away, a distance unlikely to be traveled by a kitten and indicating that the shelter either lied about the release location or does not even have accurate information about what its field officers are doing.

1.5 miles is a distance well over 5x further than a female community cat's average territory - even for more extreme estimates.  The average territory for most female cats is approximately 250 feet, according to studies conducted on feline behavior (source: National Geographic).  Though the ranges for female cats vary, the upper limit for these estimates is a radius of about 900 feet (source: Applied Animal Behavior Science). These estimates hold especially true for community cats and cats in non-rural areas.

An inquiry conducted by the Humane Society of San Bernardino which called the Rancho Cucamonga shelter on our behalf has confirmed that our case was handled incorrectly due to negligence.  Sadly we are not alone in this experience with several community members on the Nextdoor app recounting similar experiences in which cats were not returned near their community caretakers.  Many other community members have also expressed concern about using Rancho Cucamonga's TNR services precisely for this reason.

Shelters are on average only able to provide 1-2 days of recovery time for cats whereas a spay or neuter surgery requires 1-2 weeks for full recovery (source: Animal Humane Society, petMD).  Shelters do not have the resources to keep cats more than a few days.  But partnering with community caretakers who are already actively participating in the TNR program and who can monitor and help cats recover after spay and neuter procedures would significantly improve the animal welfare outcomes of the program.  Instead, through the Rancho Cucamonga shelter's current practices, the good deeds of cat lovers can be turned into high-risk situations for cats (source: Alley Cat Allies).

We urge that the following regulations be put in place to ensure cats are returned to familiar surroundings where they can recover safely and continue living with minimal disruption:

1. Any cat involved in the Rancho Cucamonga TNR program must be returned within no more than 250 feet from their original trapping site.  Returning cats to their home territories as researched by leading science papers (see several sources below) is a requirement for humane TNR programs.  In particular, the range of male ferals which is significantly greater than that of females and kittens cannot be followed as the rule.
2. The Rancho Cucamonga Animal Shelter must identify TNR program participants as either caretakers or non-caretakers and provide caretakers with the option to have the cats released directly back into their care.  Caretakers are a huge on-the-ground resource that must be leveraged by the shelter for its TNR program to be effective and humane (source: Humane Society).
3. The Rancho Cucamonga Animal Shelter must provide every TNR participant upfront with a written TNR form stating agreed-upon outcomes and release location information.  The current lack of such a form increases the likelihood of miscommunication and clerical errors which can have unacceptable consequences for the lives of innocent animals.

We cannot allow the Rancho Cucamonga TNR program to result in the cruel abandonment of vulnerable cats in need.  The TNR program can be a source of great good and a beacon for animal welfare programs, but to do so must first recognize the community cats and caretakers in Rancho Cucamonga.  Please sign this petition to make sure the cats and kittens in our community are treated with compassion and care they deserve, and that the Rancho Cucamonga TNR Program is structured to ensure humane outcomes for every living creature that passes through its doors.

 

Sources:

"A better approach includes TNR and one or more caregivers." https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/outdoor-cats-faq

"More than half the cats stayed within about 2.5 acres, or the area of two American football fields."  Note: this means the radius is approximately 1.25 acres.  https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/cat-tracker-shows-where-pets-go

"Most feral cats have small home ranges, although some are more transient and travel long distances. The home ranges of male feral cats, which are generally two or three times larger than those of female cats, are on average under 10 ha (25 acres), but can vary from almost 300 ha (740 acres) to under 1 ha (2.5 acres)" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168159115001902?via%3Dihub​ , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_cat.

"This means that the average male feral cat won’t stray but stays around 1,500 feet from what it considers home, and the female will stay within 75 yards of your door." https://www.hepper.com/how-far-does-a-feral-cat-roam/​ , https://www.catster.com/guides/how-far-do-feral-cats-roam/

"On average, sutures will remain in place for 10-14 days, which is the amount of time it takes a cat to heal after being spayed." https://www.petmd.com/cat/general-health/cat-spay-procedure-and-aftercare

"IMPORTANT: Even in the best case scenarios relocation can be very dangerous for cats and ineffective. Relocation is stressful for cats and since community cats are not socialized to people they can be unpredictable. Community cats bond to their outdoor homes and will try to go back.  In some cases cats have died in the process, when people misguidedly believe that their life will be better someplace else." https://www.alleycat.org/resources/why-trap-neuter-return-feral-cats-the-case-for-tnr/