Peo​ple all over the country, from all walks of life, care for outdoor cats every day. Like them, you’ve discovered cats in your community, and you want to help them. The millions of cats who make their homes outdoors are called community cats. You may also hear them called “feral cats,” though not all unowned, outdoor cats are feral.

Community cats are domestic cats—the same species as pet cats. The difference is that community cats are unowned and generally not socialized to people, so they cannot be adopted. But community cats are not homeless. They have a home: the outdoors and some have caretakers.

The best way you can help community cats is through Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR). TNR ensures no new kittens are born, stabilizes cat populations, provides vaccines, and improves cats’ lives.

What Is Trap-Neuter-Return?

Trap-Neuter-Return is the only humane and effective approach to community cat populations. Here are the basic steps to this lifesaving process:

1. Trap: Humanely trap all the cats in a colony. A colony is a group of cats living outdoors together.

2. Neuter/Spay: Take the cats in their traps to a veterinarian or low cost clinic to be neutered, vaccinated, and left eartipped (the universal symbol of a neutered and vaccinated cat.

3. Return: After the cats recover 24-hour period) return them to their outdoor home where they were trapped.

Watch videos of cats being returned and how to do Trap-Neuter-Return on you tube videos.