About Animals Rescue is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, founded in 2005, dedicated to ending pet homelessness.
They are the largest high quality, high volume, low-cost to no-cost spay and neuter, non-profit animal
welfare organization in Michigan with clinics in Warren, Flint, Detroit and Auburn Hills. Our focus is
on spay/neuter, community cat management, pet adoption and pet wellness care in the pursuit of No More Homeless Pets!
To date, they have safely spayed/neutered over a quarter of a million cats and dogs!
In 2019 alone, 34,106 were fixed, including 7,135 community/feral cats.
What is Trap Neuter Return (TNR)?
We can all agree there are too many cats, especially cats that live outside and
are considered community cats or “feral”. Feral kitties have had no human contact,
don’t wish to have any and have always lived outside. When the kittens are caught
early enough, they can be socialized in foster homes and adopted out. But these
once feral kittens take homes away from all the other social cats and kittens
already in shelters that need homes too!
Ferals are considered unadoptable and if taken to a shelter, they are euthanized.
There are approximately 60 million ferals in the United States. TNR seeks to reduce
the number of community cats while increasing their quality of life. After a
community cat has been spayed or neutered and vaccinated, it is returned to the
original colony where it can live out a full, healthy, non-reproductive life.
TNR is endorsed by the American Veterinary Medical Association. TNR is the least
costly as well as the most efficient and humane way of stabilizing and ultimately
reducing the feral cat population.
Certainly, people could instead choose to kill the cats, but it is far more
expensive and does not work. Cats are territorial animals, when they are removed
from the colony, new ones move in and breed to capacity. So, simply put, if
you remove the cats, more will move in.
TNR stops the cycle of reproduction. The San Diego Department of Animal Control
showed a decrease of almost 50% in the number of cats intake after starting a
TNR program. Spay/neuter reduces undesirable behaviors, such as yowling,
fighting and spraying, which also reduces the number of complaint calls made to
animal control and the number of healthy feral cats euthanized.
