Meet Mr. Colony. He is not up for adoption, but he would like us to tell you a little about the way he lives, because he lives in a colony.
What is a cat colony? It is a group of cats that live outside, usually through no fault of their own. They have their own hierarchy and very rarely allow other cats to join their colony. So if you have a colony of cats living in your area and a rescue group sees to their care, then chances are you won’t see any kind of a huge population explosion. They have probably all been spayed and neutered.
Some rescue groups do more spay/neuter and get them back out into the colony. The Cat Connection tries to have as many as possible adopted. If they are friendly then they have a chance at a forever home.
We did have one location where a college let out for the year and as the students left, their cats were tossed out and 8 cats soon became 38. The person who called took the two males and we were able to find homes for the others, but it could have gone worse if they had not gotten to a rescue organization as quickly as they did. In that case we were able to achieve a zero population, but that almost never happens.
Most of the time, before anyone even knows there are cats, things are well underway. So we go out, trap, neuter, adopt those we can, release those we can’t and again, maintain them in their colony. It is amazing to see them out there. They know who we are, but they tend to keep their distance. They truly are not natural wild animals. They became domesticated generations ago, especially the ones that have been tossed out by their owners, or lost. So we have volunteers who build warm houses for them with special entryways to protect them from predators.
Would you like to help? We need feeders at many of our colonies so chances are we might have one near you. It doesn’t take very long to stop by and take care of the colony. You could even do it on your way to or from work.
Just go to our website and fill out the volunteer form and tell us you want to be a colony feeder. No computer? Call us and we will be happy to make the connection. You can go to our website and fill out the volunteer application. Just tell them you want to be a feeder! You can also call 781-899-4610 and leave a message for the Colony Coordinator and she will be happy to get back to you!
We also have a new gofundme page to raise money for our colony cats. It will help us to help them when we get those snowstorms that block our path to get to them. Hopefully we will be able to hire people to do snow removal for us so that we can get through. All you have to do is go to the page and you can make a donation that will provide us with the money we need. Just go online and you can help. Again, if you can’t get online to make the donation then just mail it to us at The Cat Connection PO Box 541435, Waltham MA 02454-1435. Just mark it for Colony Kitties and we will add it to that special fund.
