Introducing
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The Institute for Human-Animal Connection (IHAC) aims to improve the overall well-being of humans, animals, and the environment. This is done through innovative, scientifically sound research, and scholarship in therapeutic human-animal interactions, animals in communities and conservation social work. Informed by a systems view of social problems an guided by principals of efficacy, beneficence, and justice, our research provides novel insights into the relationships between humans, animals, and the environment we share.
Key Components:
Humane Communities will...
Adapt and expand upon the community’s existing programs to address issues of basic needs while supporting the advancement of higher order needs.
Measuring Impacts:
Measured via three areas: therapeutic human-animal interactions, animals in communities, and conservation social work.
Funders
Maddie's Fund
Watershed Animal Fund
IHAC Researchers
Principal Investigator
Kevin Morris
Research Associates
Sloane Hawes
Graduate Research Assistants
Anna Straus
Elizabeth Wheatall
Gina Thompson
Hannah Nibauer
Jordan Winczewski
Maddy Trainor
Mary Ramatici
Sara Harris
Volunteers
Caitlin Gill
What is Trap Neuter Return?
The Best Friends Animal Society defines it as: "A humane, non-lethal alternative to the trap-and-kill method of controlling cat populations. Trap-neuter-return (TNR) is a management technique in which homeless, free-roaming (community) cats are humanely trapped, evaluated and sterilized by a licensed veterinarian, vaccinated against rabies, and then returned to their original habitat.
However there is ongoing controversy surrounding the impacts and implications of TNR...
This study was conducted using a One Health framework with the understanding that the health of humans, animals and the environment are inextricably connected (American Veterinary Medical Association, 2020). All areas of the interconnected social-ecological systems that we live in should be considered in order to identify best practices for the mitigating negative impacts and optimizing the positive impacts of free roaming cat populations (Hawes et al., 2019).
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Participant Selection
Data Collection
Data Analysis
Recruitment Method: Participants were recruited via IHAC Community Based Research Assistants.
Target Sample Size: 18*
Inclusion Criteria: Participants must be either a community member or a service provider who (or whose agency) works directly with feral & outdoor cat populations.
*Sample size based on standard sample sizes for phenomenological studies (Creswell & Poth, 2018) and to include approximately equal community members and stakeholders representation in data set.
Interview Type:
Semi-structured interviews*
Interview Goals:
Gain information on participant views on preferred outdoor and feral cat management and their communities (human, animal, and environmental health).
Interview Question Themes:
The prevalence of outdoor and / or feral cats in the community | Factors contributing to preferred cat management strategies | Barriers to preferred outdoor cat management strategies | Impacts of outdoor cats on health of humans, animals, and the environment |
Access to human, animal, and environmental healthcare & welfare services
*To reduce researcher bias, researchers read prompts that were composed
to be open-ended, avoided leading questions, and focused on
positive, negative, and no impacts.
Participant interview transcripts were examined by graduate research assistants for broad themes using interpretive phenomenological qualitative analysis* approach to identify each participant's unique, lived experience and understanding of the phenomenon (Banonis, 1989).
Researchers utilized a seven-step process of data analysis (Diekelmann et al., 1989):
*Interpretive phenomenological qualitative analysis is a method of interview analysis that reviews each transcript independently to learn information about each participant's unique perspective on the topics in focus. These phenomenons, referred to as "codes", are viewed alongside the other transcripts' codes to determine themes amongst the sample.
Data analysis produced 675 codes that were categorized into five major themes, each with several subthemes. The prevalence of these themes were identified by their total saturation*. Themes identified the participants’ views on outdoor and feral cat management, their communities, and the environment.
Saturation is the measurement of how many times a code was identified within an interview. It should be noted that saturation measures the total number of codes, versus the number of unique codes, within the sample in focus.
This figure illustrates the saturation of codes among participants and is integral to the understanding of communities in focus. Represented in this figure are: 10 participants from Seattle, 4 participants from Granger, 3 participants from Madison, and 1 participant from Wilder producing a total saturation of 222 (non-unique) codes.
*Relative saturation for each subtheme was calculated by dividing each subtheme saturation for the study site classification (i.e. urban, rural) by the total saturation for that study site classification.
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"Access to health services, transportation to health services, and everything involving health services is pretty limited."
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"There's so much that impacts each other, but we're not necessarily talking to each other because we think, "That's that issue over there, and this is this issue over here. I work on this and you work on that." But there's so much overlap that I just wish there was more talking and communicating between organizations about all the things that they have in common so that maybe more could get done."
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"I do not believe that we are receiving that [safe environment] in our community. Stray dogs running around is a safety concern, and I can’t go on walks with my kids because of the animal issue."
Represented are: 10 participants from Seattle, 4 participants from Granger, 3 participants from Madison, and 1 participant from Wilder, with a total saturation of 176 codes.
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"The welfare of the cats is always going to be number one for us. After that, it's going to go like welfare of cats followed by what is most feasible for the community that's supporting that [cat] colony."
"[If a] cat enters the shelter system or comes to a clinic and is really sick or suffering and injured in a way that's not easily recoverable, then I do prefer euthanasia."
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"Some of the difficulty in what we do in relocating cats is really stressful and difficult for them. We'd prefer for that to be "in and out and back to where they were" just because it's better for their stress levels and their health."
"We strongly believe in TNR. We know that it's what works. We know that there's a lot of good information out there that TNR is the right thing to do, especially for community cats since some community cats may be owned, meaning they have several owners. Like they're just a fun little neighborhood cat that needs to stop having babies. Beyond that, TNR is what really helps to reduce euthanasia in shelters."
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"[T]he individual finally got the cats trapped and got rid of them and all of a sudden, he had a rodent problem."
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"I've practiced TNR pretty much exclusively. Trap, Neuter, Return. Trap, neuter, vaccinate and return. …I did start doing TNR as a teenager when I was 16."
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"It's education [and] assuming euthanasia is not an option, explaining to them that we can get [the cats] fixed. It's just really cool to see people--most people accept that. You need to listen to the people. You hear their concerns. If they don't like cats going in their yards, we brainstorm. It's a lot of working with the community on educating where these cats come from. Feral cats come from tame cats that have not been altered."
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"[The TNR clinics] are closely booked nearly every day that we're open with request to open extra days. What prevents that from happening is probably what everybody else would say, which is funds. It's expensive. There is a lot of compassion fatigue that comes from it. It's not the best-paying field if you're a vet and you want to work in that field. It's definitely two-pronged. It's funds and it is incredibly hard to get people to come in here and want to commit to doing this. That is one thing that can be really tough about managing the feral cat population is that the people who get into it are very, very passionate about it and it can be hard sometimes to see all the problems that that can arise from it. "
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"[T]he city does not have any animal control. It’s up to us to try and control it. "
Represented are: 10 participants from Seattle, 3 participants from Granger, 3 participants from Madison, and 1 participant from Wilder, with a total saturation of 139 codes.
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"People are throwing rocks at [the cats] or trying to poison them. The biggest danger of course is traffic."
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"Probably a lot of [the cats] getting hit by cars. There would be a lot starving to death, because nobody is there to feed them."
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"Maybe even carrying diseases to non-feral cats in the community."
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"I have seen what can happen when you have a large colony of cats that have not been spayed or neutered or vaccinated and how sick they can be."
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"All I know is that [cats] kill a lot of birds. [They kill] a lot of mice, though, and they catch a lot of mice, moles, a chipmunk or two, which I'm not fond of."
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"The cats provide rodent control which is an environmentally friendly rodent control. [They reduce the] populations of critters that people really don't want."
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"[The ones] impacting the wildlife population are the humans, not the cats."
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"[T]he spay neuter programs exist is because we don't want to see cats killing animals or songbirds. Outdoor cats are number two in terms of killing songbirds."
Represented are: 8 participants from Seattle, 4 participants from Granger, 2 participants from Madison, and 1 participant from Wilder, with a total saturation of 85 codes.
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"A lot of it has to do with the fact that every time they trap, neuter, and return, you educate the community about, "It's important that you take care of these cats and you don't let them get pregnant and you do this and you do that." Part of TNR is to educate people and basically just point to people, "Here's the way the cats are and this is how you can deal with them." I've seen a significant improvement in that aspect of acceptance of communities."
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"There's a lot of fallacies out there about feral cats causing disease, whether it gets transmitted to people or causes diseases to be transmitted to owned cats in the neighborhood that are allowed to go outdoors. Generally, feral cats that are spayed and neutered and have caretakers in the community are every bit as healthy as your indoor outdoor cat and possibly even healthier."
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"Because [if cat populations aren't managed], there's going to be an overpopulation of cats running around and causing [human] health problems, as far as feces wise."
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"It tends to be poor folks who take on this that don't really have the money or the resources to feed these animals and get them care. I think feral cat care comes down to folks who are experiencing oppression and facing a lot of barriers in their life already. I know of two folks who are homeless in this area that are caring for multiple cats [and] you see the burden falling on folks who are already experiencing intersectional marginalized identities."
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"[Feral and outdoor cats] can also be companions for people who are just out working in their yard or gardening. We feel like pets have a positive impact on human health as far as companionship for humans."
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"That's also just really sad to see animals who are super sick. I also have seen the pain and sorrow that can be taken on by caregivers who feel they don't have resources and that it's their job and their sole responsibility to care for these cats. You can see, not even secondary trauma, just first-hand trauma in someone that is really empathetic and trying to find purpose through caring for a large colony of cats. "
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"[Unneutered male cats are] spraying and making the neighbors mad."
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"[It] becomes a neighborhood problem because of the noise associated with the fighting and the mating, the odor from unneutered males."
Represented are 2 participants from Seattle producing a total saturation of 2 codes.
Note: While there was a total saturation of 52 codes across all sites discussing environmental impacts, Seattle participants were unique in their discussion of concerns specifically related to the environmental impacts of feral & outdoor cats.
Implications of TNR for Human Community Members
Implications of TNR for Clinics and Animal Welfare Professionals
Implications of TNR for Wildlife and the Environment
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Methods: Limitations to Qualitative Phenomenological approach include researcher bias and subjectivity which is inherent amidst best practice for mitigation, phenomenological results are often viewed as non-generalizable and non-reproducable, and a small sample size when compared to standard quantitative methods.
Sample: This study was conducted in four locations across the continental U.S.. Communities surveyed all experience cold winters that may cause a difference in cat or wildlife populations. Many studies in existing literature were conducted on islands, where isolation can allow TNR impacts to be more easily measured (Dias et al. 2017). Additionally, urban study participants composed 72% of the sample size, with further disparity among individual study sites.
Inconsistencies With Existing Literature: Current literature complicates the issue of preferred methods for managing free-roaming cats. There is conflicting literature that supports TNR as a successful method in some cases while other studies show that lethal or alternative methods are cheaper or more effective than TNR. As noted by one interview participant, consensus is needed between different professional organizations and local government or animal control operations on preferred management methods for free-roaming cats because this issue represents a cross-disciplinary public, animal, and environmental health issue.
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