COMPARING DIFFERENT DEFINITIONS OF FERAL CATS

December 30, 2002

I'm talking about cats in colonies, as well as cats-taken-in.

Well, of course momcats and other adult cats, teach kittens things like where the food is, etc. Hunting, however, at least in the inner-city colonies I've tended to deal with, isn't a big thing -- those folks out in rural areas may have colonies for whom it is a big thing.

We'll have to disagree on whether some "true ferals" as I call them, cannot be tamed -- I firmly believe they can, BUT in many or most cases, the time/effort/experience involved, is prohibitive.

The way I came to believe this, was by taming some who helped me develop my terms of "true feral" (disinhibited, can move faster than we can track), as compared to "hard stray". Had I had anyone teaching me, I'd probably never have tried! I also had personal experience in dealing with "hard/impossible to tame" humans (autistic kid-of-my-cousin, we "tamed" him enough to get him into school for disturbed gifted; spent 6th grade teaching a severely retarded/ disturbed girl, up to grade level).

> The groups I thought we all delt with are groups of sexually active cats that reproduce every year and are living away from human contact and are feral.
> They are no longer considered domesticated. If they were, then they would be 100% adoptable. :-)
-----------
They ARE actually still domesticated cats! You don't make a cat "wild" by any experience -- it is still a "domesticated cat" no matter how feral it is. This is IMPORTANT to make a distinction -- wild cats are VERY much different than feral cats! A whole other game. Domesticated doesn't mean "tame enough to adopt out" -- e.g. you can get chased by a domesticated cow. This is a very important distinction, since some people campaign for trap/kill of colonies since "wildlife"/"wild cats" are in their eyes a health threat.

True feral (rare)-----------Hard stray----------------Stray------------

------------------"Total feral"----"Semi-feral"----"Converted feral"

is probably how I'd compare the two sets of definitions. I would definitely not use the term "feral", for stray former-pet cats.

"Hard stray" is what most call "feral". "True feral" are rarely encountered -- lots of TNR-people never get them, or only get them dead. I've only gotten them by extreme circumstances -- very intelligent momcat with kittens all starving, or cats almost dying, or by utter chance.

The example I give the most is of the poor cat who I caught, very very sick, rushed to ER vet, tech said let the cat out of carrier, foolishly I did -- cat popcorned floor to ceiling wham wham wham wham, and DID NOT STOP -- tech left, my housemate to her credit stayed -- I asked cat to go back in carrier, he did. Cat was nearly dead from FeLV, tested positive, we euthanized him immediately. But this is what "disinhibition" is, the ability to use ALL one's force --and it's very different than "regular popcorning". A "hard stray" would have popcorned, but not WHAM! hitting floor to ceiling, not over and over, not when virtually dead. That's a true feral.

By doing my definitions, I'm not trying to say anyone's cats are any less hard to deal with! I'm EXPANDING the spectrum of definition, and emphasizing that it is a spectrum, not discrete categories really.

Why do I consider this important to do? By making a spectrum, which perhaps matches observed cats better, we immediately suggest that "how tame/wild is this cat" is not an instant answer, yes/no thing. This can mean life/death for a cat. The difficulty in determining "how tame/wild" drives us to then list as found, any touchable-at-all cat (I list most cats even if I can't touch).

Abuse also makes cats appear wild, and has other effects that you can filter out from just "abandoned cat" or "stray cat" stuff. Some abused former pet cats can present as extremely hard stray.

I'm sure we could both go look at a given colony, and agree "yes this is a feral cat colony"!

I see shelters, rescue groups, and individuals making what seem to me to be snap, inaccurate decisions on "how tame/wild is this cat", all the time -- that's why I'm so big on this spectrum idea.

Gesine Lohr
GesineLohr@excite.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/feral_cats

Copyright © 2003 Gesine Lohr

Any questions or comments about the articles, please contact the author (seen at the end of each article), or feel free to join the feral_cats email list.

Go Back to Starting Rescue
Go Back to Files
Go Home