TVHR--a solution to the feral cat population?

[ginnyinWI]

It's a new idea that shows some promise according to computer models.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/08/130820-feral-cats-vasectomy-animals-science-pets-nation/

The idea is to give the toms vasectomies and leave their sexual prowess intact. They will keep a colony of females away from other toms and will not be able to get them pregnant. They will go through a pseudo pregnancy and not go into heat for 45 days, preventing further opportunities to be impregnated during that period. They also advocate hysterectomies for females, which I assume is not spaying.

Make sense to me: if you neuter 99% of all feral toms, there are still a few that are able to be busier than ever impregnating the females.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Spaying is removing the ovaries and the uterus.

Hysterectomy would be just the uterus. I assume the idea is to keep the cats able to go into heat but infertile so they would go through the motions of mating (with no results), thereby keeping any possibly fertile toms occupied. Meanwhile the toms with vasectomies would be getting busy with the females in the colony and keeping fertile males away. Interesting idea.

Could make a vas deferens in the feral population.

[ginnyinWI]

2. the best paragraph says

"The results showed that if 35 percent of a cat population underwent TVHR, that population would be reduced by half and would disappear in 11 years. Alternatively, if the cat population underwent TNR, 82 percent of cats would need to be captured and neutered in order to eliminate the colony in 11 years."

So if only a third of the cat population in an area is treated, they still are all gone in 11 years.

[JayhawkSD]

4. Yes, both methods eradicate them in eleven years

The difference is between treating 35% of the population and 82% of the population to achieve that goal, which is a very large difference in the effort involved to achieve the same result.

[geardaddy]

7. Punny!

[JayhawkSD]

3. I'm inclined to mistrust studies of this sort.

Every time a study comes, another one comes out six months later that disproves it. This study was done using "virtual cats," which is a computer program of simulating cat behavior in digital form. Hilarious. Anyone who thinks that cats are sufficiently predictable to be modelled in a computer program has never spent any time around cats.

The study also fails to address mating behavior, such as fighting, screaming, caterwauling and general chaos created by cats in search of mates. Neutered cats don't do that, but the plan presented in this study would leave that behavior unabated.

It also address eliminating feral cats, a goal of people who decry their habit of eating birds and other wildlife. For some reason, those people do not think that feral cats are themselves wildlife, and are in turn eaten by coyotes, foxes, feral dogs and and large birds of prey. According to the number of birds kills by feral cats claimed by these nitwits, the entire bird population of North America has been killed three times.

[ginnyinWI]

5. the mating behavior is elimanated eventually...

...because the colony will be gone. It will just take some patience on the part of the residents. Their model used cats who lived much longer than feral cats really do, so it might be much sooner than 11 years.

Feral cats are an introduced species and a nuisance to people--not a natural part of the order of things.

[JayhawkSD]

6. "Feral cats are an introduced species and a nuisance to people"

Not to me they aren't. Not to many other people, either.

As to being introduced, well maybe. Maybe they are just replacing other species which we have killed off. Maybe they are balancing increases in species which our presence has caused to flourish.

The Egyptians domesticated cats, as much as cats can be domesticated, to keep the rats out of their granaries. Maybe if we kill off our feral cats we'll be up to our eyeballs in rats.

"Their model used cats who lived much longer than feral cats really do"

Their model used a computer program, so who knows what would happen with real cats.

[mopinko]

8. in some places they are serious threats to native populations.

seabirds in hawaii have been decimated by them.

[Curmudgeoness]

9. I like the idea, it sounds workable, although

I wonder how much more it would cost to do vasectomies and hysterectomies. I also worry about the males who will continue to get into fights, because they often get badly injured.