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Curtailing cat conundrum
Group helps curb cat population
By Denise Dick
While Ohio counties employ dog wardens to corral loose dogs, no such official is in place to capture roaming, stray or feral cats.
We all know what happens when a boy cat meets a girl cat and the moon is just right ...
That union leads to more and more unwanted cats.
Jason Cooke, an animal activist, wants to do his part. He’s started TNRR, a trap, neuter, rabies shot and return program, for cats.
“This is my job,” Cooke said of his work, saying he believes it makes a difference.
“I work really hard at what I do,” Cooke said.
Lately, Cooke has been working in Niles, Youngstown and Campbell, but many communities are wrestling with cat overpopulation.
A sign at the Angels for Animals shelter shows the impact.
Two unfixed cats producing two litters of three cats each per year can create 80 million cats during a 10-year period.
For the past several months, Cooke has been trying to curb cat overpopulation in Mahoning, Trumbull, Columbiana and Portage counties.
Cooke goes to areas with high concentrations of feral, stray or roaming cats, armed with traps.
He catches them, delivers them to Angels where they’re neutered and vaccinated for rabies, administered flea preventative, given antibiotics if needed and then returned from whence they came, literally.
If he found two cats behind a shed, he returns them behind the shed.
“I don’t trap to euthanize, and I don’t trap to relocate,” Cooke said.
Stray cats that may have been abandoned but seem adoptable may go to a rescue, but feral and free roaming return to the area and the life they know.
Angels for Animals offers low-cost spay and neuter, which keeps costs low. But Cooke relies on donations and his own money to pay for those procedures and the rabies vaccinations.
He isn’t a nonprofit organization, but he’s established a fund at Angels, the Jason Cooke TNRR Fund, where people can contribute to Cooke’s efforts.
Donations may be mailed to the shelter, 4750 West South Range Road, Canfield, OH 44406. Donations also may be made online at angelsforanimals.org or via PayPal at paypal@angelsforanimals.org. Donors should indicate the money is for Cooke’s TNRR Fund.
People contact Cooke, who doesn’t charge them for the program. In the last two weeks, he’s trapped and returned 24 cats. His goal is 50 cats per month, but he needs donations to meet it.
Fixing the cats ultimately will lead to a reduction in the number of stray, feral or roaming cats, Cooke said. When those cats die, there will be no offspring to replace them.
Cooke, a member of several animal-welfare groups and an activist for animal rights, hopes his effort leads others to intervene in their communities before the cat populations get too high.
He plans a seminar from 10 a.m. to noon Aug. 27 at Angels’ Andrews Hall. Attendees will learn more about TNRR and tips on how to do it.
Much of Cooke’s animal activism has centered on dogs, so the trap, neuter, rabies shot and return endeavor expands his programs to cats.
He enjoys the work and it allows him to make a difference.
“I enjoy trapping cats and truly feel I am making an impact on what has become an out of control situation,” Cooke said.