Not Cat-A-Strophic: Texas A&M Program Successfully Controls Campus Feral Cats

Universities and other institutions with spacious grounds often have feral cat problems, and Texas A&M University, with one of the country’s largest campuses, has addressed its feline challenge in a highly humane and proactive manner that is being viewed as a national model.

In addition to reducing the feral cat population dramatically on the 5,200-acre campus, faculty and students at Texas A&M’s College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences have even succeeded in making some of the previously wild cats adoptable – enhancing their chances of living out their fabled nine lives.

Back in 1998, about 3,000 undomesticated cats were thought to roam Texas A&M’s huge campus, particularly at night, but today the feral population is estimated to be about 115 – a success story that has members of the Aggie Feral Cat Alliance of Texas (AFCAT) purring with delight.

“It’s a highly successful program and we’re very proud of the results,” says Mark Stickney,” a professor of veterinary medicine in the Small Animal Clinic in the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences who also serves as director of AFCAT.

A feral cat, Stickney says, is one that is too wild to be kept in a typical pet environment, and it is usually born in the wild. A university setting in any state can be a feral cat breeding zone.

Cats frequently roam throughout a university or other large complexes, and well-meaning persons will often leave out food for them. With cats being cats, they tend to multiply in a hurry, and the result can be hundreds of feral cats in just a few years.

Stickney says just about every building on the Texas A&M campus is associated with at least one feral cat, and that’s where AFCAT enters the picture.

The group is comprised of students, staff and faculty who volunteer their time. With the volunteers using humane traps, the cats are captured, neutered, vaccinated and released back to the area they were found.

“We try to find homes for those that are adoptable,” Stickney adds.

“We’re able to adopt about 25 percent of them. With feral cats, there appears to be a very critical time window. If we can capture them when they are 8-12 weeks old, we have a very good chance of socializing them, but once they get past that age, the odds of them being socialized enough to adopt are slim.”

The AFCAT program, Stickney believes, is a model for other groups to follow and the results tend to support his claim.

“Our goal is not to eliminate the feral cat population,” he adds.

“What we want to do is have a stable population of the cats that are disease-free and are manageable. It’s a realistic goal that we are proud to have achieved.”