Paws of Adam's County Community Cat Coalition

06/27/2026

Did you know YOU could be a TNR hero⁉️⁉️

It mostly takes love, patience and time to change lives.

SUPPLIES NEEDED:

- Trap: TruCatch or Tomahawk are the safest as far as preventing injury and are most secure as far as cats not escaping.

- Bait: You will need some kind of food to lure the cat into the trap.

- You will need a small dish to put the bait in. Be sure it won’t interfere with the trap plate working properly. Never put cans of food in the trap, as cats can cut their tongue on the metal edges.

- P*e pads: Placing the trap on p*e pads before and after surgery helps with clean up so the p*e and p**p doesn’t get all over your floor or car during transport. P*e pads can also be placed inside the trap while trapping, but if it is windy, they blow in the wind and the cats are sometimes leery to approach the trap. 

- Be sure to have a towel or blanket to cover the trap as soon as the cat goes in. Being covered helps them feel more safe and secure and helps them calm down so they are less likely to injure themselves trying to escape.

- It is helpful to use zip ties to secure both ends of the trap once the cat is inside the trap. Cover the trap first to help the cat start to calm down, and then lift the ends to zip tie.

THINGS TO CONSIDER:

Never trap without a plan!!!

1. Be sure to have an appointment or plan of where the cat is going for TNR surgery.

2. Have a plan of where they will be held before surgery and for recovery after surgery.

3. Have a plan of who is transporting the cat to and from surgery.

4. What will you do if you get a different cat that you hoped for? NEVER release a cat who doesn’t have an ear tip, because they are more leery to go in a trap ever again. If a cat gets trapped, they get fixed. If you are trying for a specific cat, you should use a drop trap or modified regular trap with a water bottle propping the door open and string tied to it that you pull to close the door.

5. Cats should always be released back exactly where they are trapped, unless it is not safe for them to go back there. Barn placement should only be considered if there is a serious threat to the cats life being returned where they came from. That is their home and acclimating to a new home can be very stressful and is a long process. 

02/16/2026

$50 to fix community cats.
Click on the link for more details!🐾

Operated collaboratively by Humane Fort Wayne and Fort Wayne Animal Care & Control, this program utilizes a Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) model and strives to humanely catch, sterilize, rabies vaccinate, microchip and ear-tip free-roaming and stray cats.

02/03/2026

I see this conversation come up constantly — people saying community cats should be killed, dumped somewhere else, or “just taken away.” I get the frustration, but here’s the honest truth: those ideas don’t work and usually make the problem worse.
Community cats exist whether we like it or not. They always have, and they always will. When cats are removed or killed, new cats move in. It’s called the vacuum effect, and it’s been proven over and over again. You don’t end a cat population by removing cats — you just reset it.

👉 The only method proven to actually reduce community cat populations is TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return).
Neutered cats: • stop reproducing
• fight less
• spray less
• yowl less
• and colonies slowly shrink over time
That’s not opinion — it’s backed by decades of data.

Alley Cat Allies explains it well here:
https://www.alleycat.org/resources/why-trap-neuter-return-feral-cats-the-case-for-tnr/

Dumping cats is not only cruel, it’s often illegal. Indoor cats dumped outdoors almost never “figure it out.” Many die from starvation, predators, cars, or territorial attacks trying to get back home.

ASPCA on abandonment and community cats:
https://www.aspca.org/helping-people-pets/community-cats

And here’s something that rarely gets said loud enough:
One thing that almost never gets acknowledged in these debates is the role of community cat caregivers — and honestly, that’s a problem.
Caregivers aren’t “creating” cat colonies. They don’t cause overpopulation. They step in after humans already failed — after pets were dumped, unfixed cats were allowed to roam, or kittens were born because no one intervened.
Most caregivers are ordinary people. They didn’t wake up one day wanting responsibility for outdoor cats. They saw animals hungry, injured, or reproducing endlessly and chose to do something instead of nothing.
What caregivers actually do:
• pay for spay/neuter out of their own pockets
• trap cats (which is time-consuming, stressful, and not easy)
• transport them to clinics, often hours away
• provide food so cats don’t scavenge in trash
• monitor health and injuries
• coordinate with rescues and animal control
• prevent hundreds — sometimes thousands — of kittens from being born.
That’s unpaid labor. Emotional labor. Financial labor.
And here’s the part people miss: stable, cared-for colonies cause fewer problems.
Fed cats are less likely to:

• dig through garbage
• fight over food
• roam long distances
• bother neighbors
Caregivers are doing what municipalities often don’t have the resources to do — population control and nuisance reduction, quietly and effectively.
Alley Cat Allies explains the caregiver role really well here:
https://www.alleycat.org/community-cat-care/caregiver/
The irony is that when caregivers are harassed, threatened, or driven away, the situation almost always gets worse. Cats don’t disappear — they reproduce again, new unfixed cats move in, and complaints increase. Everyone loses.
Humane Society on why caregivers are part of the solution:
https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/community-cat-caregivers
You don’t have to love cats to recognize this: caregivers are reducing suffering, not increasing it. They’re filling a gap left by irresponsible pet ownership and underfunded systems.
If the goal is fewer cats, less noise, less mess, and fewer kittens — caregivers are allies, not enemies.
And maybe the real question isn’t “Why are there people feeding cats?”
Maybe it’s why more people aren’t stepping up to prevent the problem in the first place.
People caring for community cats deserve gratitude, not hostility.

If cats are bothering you on your property, there ARE humane solutions that work — no harm required: • motion-activated sprinklers
• deterrent plants or scents
• fence toppers
• adjusting mulch and soil
Humane Society has great tips here:
https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/humane-deterrents-community-cats

No one is asking you to “love” community cats. But learning to coexist responsibly is far more effective — and far more humane — than repeating ideas that have already failed everywhere they’ve been tried.
We can do better than cruelty. And honestly? We already know what works.

Download: PDF What is Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR)? Trap-Neuter-Return is the humane and effective approach for stray and feral cats. Now in practice for decades in the US after being proven in Europe, scientific studies show that Trap-Neuter-Return improves the lives of feral cats, improves their relat...

12/12/2025