04/07/2025
Please, share and take a moment to read, so the mission, and the costs, can be understood.
Everyone knows the sacrifices that animal rescuers make to save not only the cats and dogs in desperate need, but also our local wildlife struggling for help.
Those sacrifices are often the personal time invested, but also the strong emotional impact of seeing the suffering of animals day in and day out, the joys of saving a life that would have perished without intervention, but also the constant stream of dealing with the loss of the ones you can’t save.
But there is a secondary impact that isn’t often discussed. The financial impact of rescuer efforts. On this note, I’m going to focus on the missions throughout the country that focus on TNR (Trap, Neuter, Return of community cats). The vast majority of people who take on the TNR mission utilize their own resources to accomplish this mission. Even if they are part of an organization that receives donations to spay and neuter community cats, there are a lot of secondary expenses that fall on the trappers to secure the cats, get them to clinic, and return them to their colony location.
Most TNR organizations like ours are small. We are just getting by to pay for the spay/neuter surgeries. So I wanted to track what it takes to make that happen. The burden of TNR that falls on the trappers themselves. The vast majority of trapper/transporters utilize their own vehicles and pay for their own gas.
So, my last TNR site was 13 miles away from my home base, but home base is not where we hold the cats before and after surgery. So, how did a TNR project, just 13 miles away, end up as a 229 mile mission?
Well, the TNR site was 13 miles in one direction from home base, but our holding area is 17 miles away in the opposite direction from home base. So, this is how TNR goes.
Head to the site to trap the kitties.
After securing the kitties, bring them to the holding area.
Return to home base.
The next day, return to the holding site to pick them up to drive them to clinic.
Return to home base.
Return to the clinic to pick up the cats from clinic and return them to holding center to recover from surgery.
Return to home base.
Come back to the holding center to load up the cats to bring them back home.
Return to the holding center to unload and clean traps.
Return to home base to complete mission.
The miles accrued from a simple local mission becomes a major travel endeavor, all on the back of the trapper.
One step I didn’t include is the site assessment. This is visiting the site to determine the resources needed to secure the community cats to get them all fixed and vaccinated. That would have been another 26 mile round trip on the volunteer’s dime.
So when you get mad that an organization isn’t doing enough. When you get mad that an organization isn’t “doing their job”, understand that the majority of the people who are doing the ground work are doing it out of their own pockets.
The gas money, the wear and tear of their vehicles, having to replace tires before they would normally be replaced, running their engines, transmissions, their break pads to the ground, oil changes, etc, are all on the volunteer’s dime outside of the money raised to accomplish that one simple task to just spay and neutering some cats.
We are fortunate that we have a low cost spay and neuter clinic in our town. Some organizations drive hours just to have a clinic to fix their secured kitties. I can name Willow Springs Friends of Ferals and City of Mountain Grove, MO Animal Control as examples in our region.
My overall message is to give organizations that take care of community cats a break. We struggle to find the resources to fix these kitties, and the most dedicated volunteers spend thousands of dollars in gas and the breakdown of their personal vehicles to help you.
Have patience with them. We are all out their doing our best. Most people think their situation is more important than everyone else’s. Sometimes they are right, but most times they don’t understand the list we are dealing with, and their is a lack of appreciation of what every volunteer is sacrificing to help you with your current situation.
I would just like everyone to understand that we rescuers are sacrificing everything we can to help you. The money invested by volunteers is often greater than the money raised to help you. If it doesn’t feel like an organization is doing enough for you, just know we are doing everything in our power to help, even if it doesn’t seem like it. The people working the streets often don’t see a dime for their efforts. We are out there, not only for the love of the animals that we save, but to serve the community members impacted by these poor souls within our communities.
So a 13 mile away TNR mission turned into 229 miles. We were fortunate enough to recieve a new vehicle for these missions, but when you see all the previous missions that TNR Patrol accomolished, they were all done with private vehicles, on the volunteers dime. If you following most any other TNR organization, know that it is mostly the same. Volunteers investing thousands of dollars in gas and the breakdown of their personal vehicles to help you. Please be thankful for their efforts even if they can’t be there when you want them to.
TNR for the community cats of Mountain Grove, MO.
