Española Humane program gives feral cats a second chance

ESPAÑOLA, N.M. (KRQE) – Feral cats can be hard to adopt out, but Española Humane has found success putting these types of cats to work.

“Anytime you walk into the shelter, you can’t walk by our front door without seeing one of our semi-social, but feral, cats,” said Director of Communications Mattie Allen.

Feral cat colonies can be extremely common across the state.

“Those feral cat colonies sort of get out of control then diseases can run rampant and so we go out and help with these feral cat colonies,” said Allen.

Allen believes these cats can have a better life.

“They may not want to be loving in a home; they may not want to be pet or, obviously, carried, but they do want to be around humans a little bit,” said Allen.

For the last few years, Española Humane has adopted feral cats out through their herding cats program, giving feral cats “work” at barns or on farms.

“A woman called who wants to adopt several feral cats because all of hers had gotten old and senior, and once her last feral cat passed away in a few weeks, she suddenly caught 16 mice in one night,” said Allen.

Feral cats are brought in through animal control or people trying to keep colonies contained through trap, neuter, and release.

“They are safer, and they aren’t out there reproducing and producing more and more litters [to] increase the amount of cats that are out there on the streets without any caretakers,” said Allen.

Each case is different.

“If they are kittens when they come in, we do have a couple of fosters that we call our de-feralizers,” said Allen.

Once the kittens spend some time socializing, they can be adopted out.

“It could be none, and then all of a sudden, we have 15 feral cats that come in,” said Allen.

Last year, Española Humane said around 220 feral cats and kittens were brought to the shelter. They are now down to 5.