06/16/2026
Are you a colony caregiver, someone who oversees a group of cats that do not belong to you but rely on you to be fed? A colony is a population of community cats that have made your area their home. Perhaps they showed up at your house because neighbors moved and abandoned them, someone dumped them, they were looking for a food source or for a myriad of other reasons and, since making your home theirs, they have had litters of kittens, or perhaps more have been dumped or found their way to you. This may be a frustrating, seemingly hopeless and potentially expensive situation that you did not ask for... but Wildcatters of Kilgore can help!
We cannot remove the ones you have, but we can help with our TNR (trap-neuter-return) program that works in conjunction with the City of Kilgore. Wildcatters can assist registered colonies located in the city limits. We will come to your home, trap the colony kitties and take them to one of our vet partners to be spayed or neutered and get a rabies shot. Their ear will also be tipped so that they are recognized as having been altered. All this at no cost or to you! Wildcatters does the work and the city of Kilgore will cover the cost of spay/neuter and rabies vaccine expenses.
YOU MUST BE A REGISTERED COLONY TO QUALIFY. To register your colony, go to city hall and fill out an application. The animal control officer will review/approve your application and pass your information on to Wildcatters. A Wildcatters volunteer will then reach out to you to arrange times to try to trap your kitties (a few at a time). They will be trapped in the evening before surgery, kept overnight so that they go in without having eaten, they will take them to the vet, pick them up that afternoon, keep them overnight again for observation, then return the cats to you the next afternoon.
This will not change your immediate circumstances of having colony cats relying on you for food/care, but it will make such a difference for you and the cats in the long run. They will not be fighting for territory, having litters every few months, there won’t be kittens at risk of starvation, cars, bigger animals, the elements, and so on. You will be doing so much to humanely make the cats of your area safer, healthier.
Please consider registering your colony to get this free help our city provides.
