The problems of feral cats seems to receive a fair amount attention among mainstream animal protection and animal rights groups. Eg there are campaigns to neuter them (humanely) to prevent over-population etc. Birds are fed by many humans but it is unclear to me whether that is net-positive in long run, much less an effective intervention. Rodents and bugs receive less attention, quite possibly rightly so.
Feral cats certainly receive more attention than other areas, but the question is if that’s done effectively (or if it can be leveraged with new efforts); I have never seen a charity that efficiently tries to optimize for neutering them (though I admit I didn’t investigate the matter deeply).
Your suspicions are correct; there’s actually some good evidence to suggest that TNR is not effective at reducing feral cat population. Here’s a very short summary which links to pages with more detail, if you’re interested: https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/trap-neuter-release/
The problems of feral cats seems to receive a fair amount attention among mainstream animal protection and animal rights groups. Eg there are campaigns to neuter them (humanely) to prevent over-population etc. Birds are fed by many humans but it is unclear to me whether that is net-positive in long run, much less an effective intervention. Rodents and bugs receive less attention, quite possibly rightly so.
Feral cats certainly receive more attention than other areas, but the question is if that’s done effectively (or if it can be leveraged with new efforts); I have never seen a charity that efficiently tries to optimize for neutering them (though I admit I didn’t investigate the matter deeply).
Your suspicions are correct; there’s actually some good evidence to suggest that TNR is not effective at reducing feral cat population. Here’s a very short summary which links to pages with more detail, if you’re interested: https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/trap-neuter-release/