We Love Feral Cats

Posted in Mewsletter by vokracommunications

Venus is a current resident in our barn shelter

As we told you recently, VOKRA’s TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) program is a large part of what we do. Some might say it’s at the very heart of what we do as VOKRA was founded because of unspayed feral moms and kittens who faced harsh conditions on Vancouver’s streets. Due to our efforts, the number of feral cats in Vancouver has significantly decreased and those left will live out their lives peacefully without having to reproduce litter after litter of kittens.

At VOKRA we love feral cats. Whether they be semi-feral or full fledged, we recognize they deserve our love and attention despite not having had the good fortune of being born indoors. We’ve been lunged at, hissed at and bitten, but we know these cats are only doing their best to look out for themselves the only way they know how. When feral kittens come in spitting and swiping we tame them and they are eventually adopted out. We’re often able to tame semi-feral adults too, though it takes a little more time and effort.

For the truly feral cats, the most humane thing we can do for them is spay and neuter them and return them back to their location. Sometimes though, that space isn’t safe or is no longer available and that’s when our barn program comes in handy. In 2006, thanks to the help of a generous donor, we were able to set up a barn shelter for feral cats who couldn’t be returned. This shelter has become a sanctuary for some of our ferals who are able to live out their lives peacefully with a warm shelter and enclosed outdoor access, along with the care and dedication of our volunteers.

Karona was a beautiful, wonderful cat with a temperamental heart of gold. She swatted and yelped at us before learning to love us back.

It’s not always easy working at our barn location as volunteers have to trudge through months of heavy rain. We currently have 17 volunteers, each of whom monitors the health and wellbeing of the cats in addition to chores and socialization time. Some cats have even been tamed enough over the years to be placed in foster homes and adopted. VOKRA barn manager, Mairi Graves, describes the cats as her “18 surrogates” and feels lucky to have met them all, including Mr Washington, Pharoah and especially Karona, who we lost too soon last year.

While we’re fortunate to have that space available for some cats, it can’t house all of them. Thankfully we have our barn placement program, where we find barn owners who are dedicated animal lovers looking for cats they can employ as rodent population control technicians. In return, they agree to provide food, water and shelter. This program began about six years ago and we have since placed many feral cats in barns across the Lower Mainland.

A group of feral siblings, some of whom have now been tamed and adopted.

Janet Cox, who coordinates the barn program, looks for barns that don’t use pesticides and have a low incidence of coyotes. Like adopters, potential barn sponsors are interviewed and VOKRA volunteers drive cats to their new homes as far away as Squamish and Mission. There’s a dedicated “imprint” time of four weeks, during which cats must live inside a large shelter. This allows them to become used to their new area and mark it as their own. After this time, the cats are released and Janet follows up with the barn owners.

Feral cats don’t have it easy by any means – they’ve missed out on the happy lives of many a spoiled house cat. Most feral cats live a short life on the streets and face a death that’s as harsh as their life. Our barn program helps alleviate such burdens because, as Mairi says, “they’re wonderful and often misunderstood creatures who yearn for the same things humans do: shelter, sustenance and love.” As much as we help them, they help us too.

If you’d like to support our feral and barn cat program you can donate here.

Written by Ellen R.

Way back in 2008 a story about our barn cat program appeared on Global TV. Unfortunately the challenges we faced back then are still the same challenges we face today. One of the only things that has changed is we now adopt out more than 1,400 cats per year. Click here to watch the story.

7Oct2015

TNR Works!

Posted in Mewsletter, You Can Make a Difference by vokracommunications

It’s hard to keep track of all the acronyms that exist these days, but in the cat rescue world TNR is a big one. TNR stands for Trap-Neuter-Return and describes the process of trapping feral cats, spaying or neutering them, and then returning them to the location they came from. According to VOKRA co-founder Maria Soroski, it’s the most effective and humane way to help control the feral cat population.

When VOKRA formed back in 2000, Maria had no idea what a feral cat was, which is hard to believe for someone who is such a strong advocate for Vancouver street cats. She, along with fellow co-founder Karen Duncan, began by bottle feeding kittens that had been brought into the SPCA before branching off on their own to create VOKRA.

Maria with a bottle baby.

“I had no idea where the kittens were coming from,” says Maria, who wondered what happened to the kittens’ moms. “I assumed they were from owned cats or that they’d been orphaned.” However, as kittens kept arriving from the same addresses, Maria and Karen started to do a little sleuthing. They soon discovered a whole world of feral cats. The mother cats hadn’t been brought in because they were wild – no one could touch them, let alone pick them up and transport them into care.

Maria discovered entire colonies, some with upwards of 50 cats. They were all the moms, dads, aunts, uncles and cousins of all the bottle-fed kittens that had come in. Thanks to the guidance of local rescuers and the resources of Alley Cat Allies, Maria quickly learned to trap and hasn’t looked back since.

VOKRA’s volunteer trappers, spearheaded by Maria, spent eight years trapping seven days a week in Vancouver and Burnaby. It’s estimated there were more than 8000 – 9000 free roaming cats in Vancouver before VOKRA came along. The number of feral cats is now down to less than 300 with the remaining colonies under control. Some of the colonies now consist solely of senior citizen cats, who pass on humanely after living a life on their own terms.

It’s estimated there were more than 8000 – 9000 free roaming cats in Vancouver before VOKRA came along, but now that number is down to less than 300 with the remaining colonies under control.

For cats that we can’t return to their original site, we try and find them another home – specifically a barn or hobby farm. Janet, who coordinates the barn cat placement program, says “It’s an alternative option for feral cats that are unable to be returned to their original location for various reasons.” The barns are located throughout the Lower Mainland, from Abbotsford to Squamish, and Janet often drives the cats to their new homes herself. Potential placements are interviewed in advance and the cats are guaranteed fresh food and water daily, along with a safe shelter area. In their new “jobs” as rodent control technicians they have a better life than they would out on the streets.

If the cats are young enough or semi-tame, then we’ll try to socialize them so we can adopt them to forever homes. “We’re not scared of hissy babies,” says Maria. Armed with gloves, towels, treats, and a whole lot of patient love, VOKRA volunteers socialize kittens in their homes. VOKRA runs workshops and provides coaching to these special families. Fosters tell us this is an immensely rewarding part of being with VOKRA. To watch a kitten or adult cat transform from an untrusting and extremely frightened creature to one that seeks out your affection with headbutts to your hand, and who purrs at the very sound of your voice, is a truly amazing experience.

We respond to as many calls we can and trap feral cats, tame moms protecting their kittens and tame adults that are too afraid to trust humans just yet. Sometimes this involves all-night efforts and sometimes it involves walking into an abandoned house in protective gear so as not to be eaten alive by the swarms of fleas. Whatever it takes – the fate of all cats is important to us and those who were never given the chance to live a safe, indoor life deserve the best that we can give them.

Join us in celebrating National Feral Cat Day October 16.

As a non-profit association we rely on the contributions of people like you. If you’d like to support our TNR program click here.

Post written by Ellen R.

27May2015

Making a Difference in North Surrey

Posted in You Can Make a Difference by vokracommunications

There are an estimated 34,000 free-roaming cats currently living in Surrey. Without intervention, this number is expected to grow as cats and kittens continue to reproduce at an alarming rate. Surrey resident Charlotte Austin recognized the overpopulation of stray cats within the city and the critical need to promote spaying/neutering within her community. With the support of local physician Dr. Jeffrey Roberts, Charlotte founded the North Surrey Spay/Neuter Project, which provides free spay/neuter services for low-income families.

Overpopulation problem? Us?

It began in the fall of 2014 when Charlotte learned that many of the children she works with had unsterilized cats and kittens at home. Many of these children’s families are low-income and could not afford the spay/neuter fees, along with other veterinary care such as vaccination or tattooing. Through her volunteer work with VOKRA, Charlotte would offer to take in kittens that these families needed to find homes for, and would herself pay to have cats sterilized and vaccinated. However, she knew her efforts wouldn’t be enough to address the constant need for free spay/neuter services in Surrey.

That’s when she remembered a conversation she once had with a doctor in the community (and VOKRA adopter!) Dr. Jeffrey Roberts of the Pacific Centre for Reproductive Medicine, a company with a lot of caring cat people working there. Having previously spoken together about cats and VOKRA, Charlotte decided to speak to Dr. Roberts about the need for low-income families to access veterinary care for their cats and kittens.

I approached Dr. Roberts about sponsoring a free spay/neuter project for families in the community where I work. He very graciously agreed to sponsor the project and started the wheels rolling with a hefty donation.

In less than five weeks, the North Surrey Spay/Neuter Project helped spay/neuter thirty-three cats and kittens, with several females awaiting spaying once their kittens have been weaned.

Her kittens are adorable, but Mitsy will be happy not to have any more thanks to the NSSNP

Her kittens are adorable, but Mitsy won’t be having any more thanks to the NSSNP

Charlotte immediately saw the positive impact the North Surrey Spay/Neuter Project has had in her community.

This project is unique because it helps both animals and people. The families are extremely grateful for the assistance and the cats do not have to worry about producing more or ever having kittens. As well, it is a shining, real-life lesson in the responsibility of proper pet guardianship to children.

VOKRA and kitten Cookie help kids learn about responsible pet guardianship

However, veterinary care is not cheap and there is no end in sight to the cats and kittens in Surrey who need to be spayed/neutered.

We are very proud of how many cats and kittens we have helped, but have basically drained the account. We seriously need help from the public to continue this project. It is a small, but necessary step, in helping reduce the number of stray cats in Surrey.

Cocomo will surely keep getting into trouble, just not THAT kind of trouble anymore!

Charlotte and the North Surrey Spay/Neuter Project have started something great with the support of Dr. Jeffrey Roberts, but with kitten season now in full swing, the project desperately needs your help to continue to address the critical need for veterinary care for cats and kittens in Surrey.

You can help control the number of unwanted cats and kittens. Visit VOKRA.ca to donate, noting North Surrey Spay/Neuter Project, today.

Post written by Kim C.

26May2014

Maria’s CATch of the Day #1

Posted in Maria's CATch of the Day by vokracommunications

I joined Maria, VOKRA’s head trapper, recently to visit an area she has been trapping ferals in for several years. She does her best to get them all and the neighbours help her out with information, access to their yards and even snacks when her hours get long. But sometimes cats get missed, someone dumps a new cat in the area or an owned, outdoor cat isn’t fixed. Then, despite her best efforts, new ferals are born.

Getting ready

On Saturday, we caught six kittens, about eight weeks old. Can you spot them trying to hide from Maria in the grass?

We see you!

They were speedy little muffins but Maria managed to nab two right away. The others found a clever hiding place where we almost missed them. Only Maria’s keen and experienced eye noticed this fuzzy butt under the fence!

Kitten butt!

They were in a neighbour’s yard, hiding in a pile of wood. Thanks to the help of the homeowner and Maria’s leather gloves, we got them! Maria “freestyled it”, unable to use any kind of tools or traps because of the location. She was finally able to grab each hissy, bitey, scratchy kitten while I held open the carrier door just long enough to drop them inside and shut the door tightly again.

Gotcha!

Then we set the traps to try and catch the mom. We’d seen her under an old boat that was being stored in a carport and figured this was her home base.

Within a few hours, success! Mom was reunited with her babies at our Operations Centre. Maria named her Judith, in honour of her friend (and fellow cat rescuer) Judith’s birthday. The mom is tame and, with some socialization by one of our experienced fosters, the kittens will be tamed too.

Judith and her babies

Soon after that, another mama was caught, this one a mama-to-be. She is ready to give birth any day now so we got her just in time. The name Sonata was picked for her.

We were hoping to catch this guy, the obvious father of the kittens.

Big Daddy

Isn’t he a studly fellow? He was strutting around the alleys of South Van like he owned the joint and I’m pretty sure I heard the BeeGees song Stayin’ Alive playing. Unfortunately, we haven’t had any luck catching him yet.

Sunday we caught a beautiful young grey female, probably about seven or eight months old. The neighbours say they were born last winter and that some of the litter haven’t been seen for a while, undoubtedly coyote snacks. Maria named this girl Elsie after Elsa, the woman who called us about these cats. Elsie was very sweet and let me pet her head through the cage so she is likely a kitten of the tame mom. Hopefully she is tame enough that she can be adopted into a loving home.

Elsie

Monday, we caught this beautiful guy who is likely Elsie’s brother.

We know he is a brother because Maria is an expert at reaching through the bottom of the trap to feel for…um…telltale signs.

Yup, that’s a boy

The Studly Siamese is undoubtedly wondering where his ladies are! Hopefully he will go in one of our traps soon so we can neuter him and prevent more kittens from being born. The neighbours all know to call Maria if they spot any more kittens but cats are very good at hiding their babies so we won’t always know about them. Fingers crossed there aren’t any more there.

Maria’s trapping van and a victorious Maria with a helpful homeowner

Speaking of kittens, when we were heading home after this trapping adventure, Maria said to me, “I just want to drive by a house near here. I’ve trapped there before but I think I might have seen some kittens when I drove past today.” You’ll have to wait for another blog post to find out what we discovered but, let me just say, yes, there were kittens. Oh boy, were there kittens. Stay tuned!

Are you good at climbing over things and under things (including things that might contain a bunch of spiders)? Does the idea of sitting in a car for hours watching a trapping site on a kitty stakeout sound good to you? Can you recognize a fuzzy kitten butt under a fence from across an alley? Then volunteering as a VOKRA trapper might be for you! Maria is always looking for people who have strategic minds, who aren’t afraid to get dirty, and who have good people skills to join her trapping team. Check out this and other volunteer opportunities on our website and fill out an application.

We’d love to have you volunteer with us!

12May2014

Where Do Your Donations Go? (Video)

Posted in Videos by vokracommunications

Ever wonder where your money goes when you donate to Vancouver Orphan Kitten Rescue Association? Let these adorable VOKRA kitties tell you all about it!

Great big thanks to Jamie Hamilton of Hamilton Design for making this video for VOKRA. Jamie’s family has volunteered with VOKRA for many years and Jamie grew up surrounded by foster kittens so he knows first hand what we’re all about.

Many thanks also to the lovely Bif Naked for letting her song So Happy I Could Die be used. Bif is such a great supporter of animals and we sure do appreciate her.

Now that you know how much good your money can do, what’s stopping you from donating to VOKRA?

the VOKRA blog

Vancouver Orphan Kitten Rescue Association

Tag Archives: spay/neuter