Eagle Scout to help feral cats

Have a Heart Humane Society has been approached by a Tehachapi Eagle Scout to work with him and his troop on a community service construction project. We have given the idea a lot of consideration.

Have a Heart proposes to work with the scouts to help some of the feral cat colonies in Tehachapi. Why does Tehachapi have feral cats? Feral cats are the offspring of stray or abandoned pets that were not spayed or neutered.

Have a Heart will ask business owners, residents and our own volunteers to help trap the cats, drive them to Dr. Willis in Cummings Valley where Have a Heart will pay to have them altered and vaccinated, then return them home.

Helping ferals often draws resistance because people just want the cats gone, but here is some information that we hope will open eyes and change minds.

The Trap-Neuter-Return program is also called TNR. According to Alley Cat Allies, a leading nationwide authority on feral cats, "Trap-Neuter-Return is the humane and effective approach for stray and feral cats." It improves the cats' lives, their relationships with people, and over time decreases the colony's numbers. TNR stops wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars. Alley Cat Allies says, "Catching and killing cats has been a futile effort used by animal control and shelters across the country for decades. Investing in spay/neuter, and TNR is an investment in cats' lives, cats' health, and it demonstrates a socially responsible, compassionate and efficient approach to service the animals and the public. Attempts to permanently remove cats from an area always fail because of a natural and scientifically documented phenomenon known as the vacuum effect. In basic terms, whenever cats are removed, new cats move in, or the surviving cats left behind breed to capacity."

Once TNR is performed mating behaviors cease, like roaming, yowling, spraying and fighting. Cats become better neighbors; colonies become quieter. Feral cats are also a great rodent deterrent, much safer than using poisons.

Winters in Tehachapi can be brutal at times and without proper shelter ferals can become sick, and this is where the Eagle Scouts come in. They would like to build approximately eight attractive semi-permanent shelters to house the ferals within their own colonies.

These Eagle Scouts are some of Tehachapi's finest young men who take scouting seriously and hope to use their scouting credentials to help them get into the best colleges, where they will become our nation's new leaders.

Have a Heart believes that this project will help not only a multitude of unloved, homeless cats, but some hard working teenage boys looking to fulfill their scouting requirements, as well as the residents and businesses of the greater Tehachapi area.

Please email Have a Heart at [email protected] if you have a feral cat colony and would like to work with us.