**SCOOP's 2010 EBay auction has begun! View over 350 items and more will be added throughout the week so please check back. Go to our "EBay Auction!" page and follow the link. Thank you and happy bidding!**
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**A large Middletown, Ohio cat colony needs your help.**
Click here to read the online article.
Click here to read the article in the Middletown Journal.
Click here to read WLWT coverage.
Click here to view the WLWT video.
No donation is too small. Please donate here through PayPal, or send a check to SCOOP, Inc. A tax receipt will be provided. We thank you for helping us save the kittens and cats!
Adorable, friendly, and healthy cats and kittens from this colony need permanent indoor-only homes. Please go to SCOOP's Petfinder website and view the listings for "Middletown," as well as SCOOP's adoption guidelines. Missy, Ella, and the others are waiting to meet you.
Those at SCOOP are extremely grateful to the following organizations for their invaluable assistance in helping this large cat colony: Cat-Tales Rescue, The Scratching Post, UCAN, and Ohio AlleyCat Resource.
Who We Are:
SCOOP is a non-profit, 501(c)(3), organization that promotes the compassionate treatment and well-being of the feline population. We are completely staffed by volunteers and our board members receive no pay. All proceeds benefit cats and the community. Our major focus is to provide a spay/neuter voucher program for people of any income who help stray and feral cats, called free-roaming cats. We do not have the resources to provide direct trap-neuter-return (TNR) services, but rather we provide financial assistance, education, and consultation to those interested in helping stray or feral cats.
SCOOP cares for cats, many with special needs, in two homes that serve as sanctuaries. We do not have a shelter and cannot assist community members with their rescued cats, or pet cats being relinquished. Our focus is community spay/neuter assistance.
PayPal:
For $35.00 you can buy a spay/neuter for a stray or feral cat. For $47.00 you can buy a spay/neuter with a vaccination. Thank you for your donation and support of our mission! A tax deductible receipt will be sent to you.
A few SCOOP Cats:
Pretty and her kitten, Tabitha Gabe, taking notes! Gus, waiting to be adopted.
What is Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) that SCOOP advocates?:
SCOOP advocates the proven technique of TNR for humanely reducing the stray and feral cat population. TNR is a program that allows outdoor stray and feral cats to continue to live outdoors after being humanely trapped, sterilized, and vaccinated. These cats then have lifelong caretakers who provide food, water, and shelter. Often, stray cats and kittens, or young feral kittens, are tamed and adopted. Research shows that TNR helps reduce the number of feral and stray cats in communities. The technique was brought to the United States from Europe in the late 1980s. It works by breaking the cycle of reproduction.
Eighty one percent of Americans believe that leaving a stray or feral cat outside to live out its life is more humane than having the cat caught and killed. Even when asked to assume that a stray or feral cat will die by being hit by a car, 72% of Americans believe it's still more humane to let the cat live in its outdoor home. Euthanasia at animal shelters is the number one documented cause of death for cats in the United States. It costs more taxpayer dollars (three times as much) for the cat to be trapped, held, killed, and disposed of at the county shelter than it does to humanely trap, sterilize, vaccinate, and release the cat back to its outdoor home where it's provided food and water by caretakers. The breeding stops, nuisance behaviors of unspayed and unneutered cats stop, and disease and malnutrition are greatly reduced.
What is a feral cat?
Feral cats are unsocialized to humans. Stray cats have been abandoned or lost, and they can become feral over time. Typically, stray cats can be re-socialized and adopted.
Where do feral cats live?
Feral cats live in yards, parks, barns, college campuses, deserted buildings, near restaurants, in apartment or condo developments, etc. Where there are food sources and shelter, there are cats.
How many stray and feral cats are there?
In the United States, it's estimated that there are between 60 to 100 million stray and feral cats.
Won't these wild cats carry rabies?
Rabies is overwhelmingly a disease of wildlife such as raccoons, bats, skunks, and foxes. Cats are not a primary vector of rabies. From 1990 to 2006, only 38 people died from rabies in this country, and not one was contracted from a cat.
What about wildlife, such as birds, that cats kill?
Cats are not the cause of wildlife depletion--humans are. Studies show that the overwhelming cause of wildlife depletion is destruction of natural habitat due to manmade structures, chemical pollutions, pesticides, and drought.
Does trap and remove work as well as TNR?
"Trap and kill" does not work. Where there are food sources, feral and stray cats establish territories. If you get rid of the cats in that area, then more cats quickly move into the area and this is called the "vacuum effect." These unsterilized cats will breed. Colonies of cats will remain relatively stable and when all of the cats are fixed in those colonies, that means no more kittens.
Who does TNR?
People from all walks of life are assisting with this compassionate solution--doctors, teachers, lawyers, business owners, police officers, construction workers, etc.
What about the diseases being spread by these outdoor cats?
House cats and feral cats contract feline AIDS and leukemia at the same rate--about 4%. Stray and feral cats cannot spread these diseases to people, or to other animals.
SUPPORT OHIO SPAY/NEUTER PROGRAMS
Any registered automobile owner in Ohio is eligible to purchase an Ohio Pet Specialty License plate and all proceeds will go to the Ohio Pet Fund, a non-profit corporation. Money in the fund will be used to support spay/neuter programs for dogs and cats in Ohio, and for the educational programs about the proper veterinary care of those pets.
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