Those pesky Axis meanies have once again nicked the radar parts. Once again the Allies must return the radar bits. The Axis must defend the Radar bits with their lives yet again.
A feral cat colony is a local
population of
feral
cats living in a specific location and using a common
food source such as food scavenged from dumpsters or supplementary
feeding by humans. Feral cat populations and colonies are located
worldwide, including parts of the world where the domestic house cat is
an introduced species, such as the Americas and Australia.
Those familiar with feral cats disagree on how many cats must be present for
the population to be considered a "colony", with some who consider even a single
feral cat that is regularly present at a site to be a colony, while others would
require multiple cats to be present in a location at a higher density than the
baseline population in surrounding areas.
Feral cat colonies form when irresponsible humans intentionally abandon their
unsterilized pets or allow them to wander off, or if the pet escapes before
planned
sterilization. Colonies can also arise when changes in human activity create
an opportunity for existing baseline feral cat populations to form a locally
concentrated group. For example, the opening of a new restaurant and resulting
presence of edible garbage can attract cats from the local population and allow
them to breed and survive in larger numbers.
The feral colony around the
Pantheon, Rome is given long legendary history at that location.
Colonies often considered a nuisance
When a feral cat colony grows to a large size, those living or working nearby
might consider the presence of a locally concentrated cat population to be a
nuisance. Specific concerns often include:
Urine
spraying to
mark territory
Digging in gardens and
feces left by
the cats
Noise made by fighting and mating cats
Predation upon
wildlife
Diseases transmissible to humans (zoonoses)
Diseases transmissible to
pets
The poor state of health of the cats in the colony
The likelihood of
population growth
Those who consider feral cat colonies to be a nuisance traditionally have
attempted to eliminate the colony, by requesting that
municipal or private pest control services trap the cats and remove them
(typically to be euthanized). However, if the factors that allowed the colony to develop in
the first place (e.g. food resources) are not addressed as well, a new colony
can form in the same location when cats that escaped trapping and cats from the
surrounding area move in and breed.
"Managed" colonies
More recently, a number of
animal welfare organizations have begun to employ the "Trap-Neuter-Return" (TNR)
method to deal with the issue of feral cat colonies, sometimes with the support
of local municipalities. This approach includes sterilization of the cats to
prevent breeding, removal (and euthanasia of sick or injured cats), vaccination, marking, and return of healthy cats to the site, and rescue of
kittens and other tame cats to adoptive homes. Groups promoting this approach
believe that it addresses many of the concerns of those who might otherwise
consider the colony a nuisance, and provides a palatable alternative for cat
lovers who might otherwise take no action to prevent the population from
growing.
A colony in which the TNR method is being used to sterilize the cats and that
is under the regular care and observation of a caretaker is known as a
managed colony.
Breeds arising from feral cat colonies
Two breeds
of cat have been developed recently from feral cat populations. The
Egyptian Mau was developed from
Egyptian feral cat colonies in the 1950s. The
American Keuda is being still developed from barn cat colonies in the US
Southwest from the
1980s.