Cat cafes. Depending on where you may be in the world, those two words mean different things. Both "definitions" are basically good.
In Japan, cat cafes allow cat lovers (many who can't have cats where they live) to interact with felines who are there for that purpose. Closer to home in St. Thomas, cat cafes are decorative feeding and watering stations for feral cats on the island.
Who could argue with either kind when cats are well-treated at both? (Please visit www.nj.com/pets for details on both types, with an emphasis on the Caribbean version.)
Here in New Jersey right now, we're on the cusp of kitten season -- a time when feral cats, already getting enough negative attention, have litters of kittens, which means still more cats living outdoors.
Of course, the overall answer continues to be T-N-R, or trap, neuter, return. If adult feral cats are sterilized, they can't procreate. They can live out their lives, often in a colony, until the colony gradually dies off.
The challenge to T-N-R is . . . T-N-R: quite simply, not enough people have bought into the T-N-R concept; not enough people are involved in trapping, neutering and returning feral cats, with the result that there will be more kittens this spring and more adult feral cats next year, and so on and so on.
Next week is World Spay Day, an annual event when the Humane Society of the US and other organizations promote T-N-R even more strongly. (Click on HSUS in the box at right for more details.)
Spay Day events are planned all over (the HSUS site includes a map), though none show for the Trenton area -- yet. There's still time to pull something together and get numbers of cats sterilized; every neutered cat helps!
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