Animal Welfare Professionals

Looking for a quick number for a meeting I have tonight.   What is the average cots to trap, shelter, euthanize and kill a feral cat?   Need it for the talking point that RTF/TNR is cheaper than trap and kill.   I've heard the # $100 per cat but not sure if that's a valid number.  I'm in CA since I know there could be geographic differences.

Joy, I can't speak to the accuracy of this or regional differences but I just found this on the Havahart website: 

"This method of controlling the cat population is remarkably more cost effective than trapping and killing feral cats. TNR costs roughly $50-$60 for the entire process, while it generally costs roughly $100-$105 to euthanize a cat. There are even a few TNR programs throughout the U.S. that cover the full cost for TNR, making the expense for the individual trapping the cat $0." Here's the link where I found it:  http://www.havahart.com/articles/benefits-tnr-programs-euthanasia   

I'm sure there are other great resources out there, too-- Alley Cat Allies, Neighborhood Cats, HSUS, etc.

@JohnDBoone @Julie Levy @Peter @Bryan Kortis Do you have other figures?

I recall that Jon Cicirelli of Feral Freedom in San Diego presented pretty convincing numbers, which were somewhere around $50 for return to field vs. $200 for trap and kill if my brain does not deceive me. It is probably worth finding a webinar where he talks about that in more depth, or one of the papers on Feral Freedom. I would also check out the HSUS' excellent manual on managing community cats for municipal leaders:  https://www.animalsheltering.org/page/managing-community-cats-guide-municipal-leaders

Now, I would add that it depends a lot on how things are implemented. I am a volunteer at our local shelter, and I am involved with return to field here. The shelter has a contract with city animal control, cats that come into the shelter in a trap are held for 72 hours before they are either channeled into adoption/foster or return to field. I pick up the cats after surgery, which the shelter provides; everything needed for recovery at my house, medical treatment if there needs to be a follow up, and transport are covered by me. I am pretty sure that if one were to calculate the full cost of return to field here, it would be significantly more than killing non-adoptable community cats at the end of their stray hold. Of course, return to field is obviously the right choice no matter what. 

Your costs of housing:

-cost to care for that cat per day: staff time to clean, cost of food, water, litter, cleaning supplies for that kennel

(stray hold times vary by community; AZ has a statewide stray hold exemption for cats that are SNR/RTF, which immediately cuts costs of housing; our SNR cats get surgery the day after they come in and are back out before the stray time is even up.)

-cost of staff time and drugs to kill the cat at the end of their stray hold

-cost of disposal

Our shelter vets do our SNR surgeries in house, which makes “cost” on each surgery very cheap. Our TNR surgeries, vx included are done at private vets for $50 each. One of these vets once told me that cost for this (supplies, staff, etc) is about $30 each, so I figure that’s what it is for a SNR surgery in-house.

Our SNR cats stay in a trap/transfer cage pre/post op and are fed donated food, so cost almost nothing to house compared to the cats in our adoption kennels.

Transport back to trapping site, if done by staff instead of volunteers would be the “final” primary expense  

The costs of TNR versus trap-and-euthanize will vary greatly location by location and an individual analysis of your community will need to be done if you want accurate results.  Also remember the question is not just what are the costs, but what are the costs to the municipality or shelter?  We tend to think of volunteer work as "free", which it is to the municipality or shelter, but not to the people doing the work.

So if the question is what are the comparative costs to the municipality or local shelter of TNR vs. trap-euthanize, here's what to consider:

Costs of trap-and-euthanize may include all or some of the following:  the costs of capturing the cat if performed by an ACO or other municipal employee (labor, fuel, other vehicle-related expenses), the staff time (labor) required at the shelter for intaking the cat, the staff time for caring for the cat during any mandatory holding period, also food, litter, etc., during the holding period, the cost of the euthanasia procedure and the cost of disposal of the body.  Some shelters will have performed this analysis already and know the per cat cost.

Costs of TNR may include the costs of capturing the cat (while usually this is done by volunteers at no cost, an increasing number of shelters now employ community cat staff), the cost of the spay/neuter surgery and any required ancillary care such as vaccinations, the cost of any staff time taking care of the cat pre- and post-surgery (again this is often done by volunteers) and the cost of transporting the cat back to his colony site.

In my experience, in most communities, the bulk of the labor and expenses for TNR are born by volunteers and nonprofits, while the costs of trap-euthanize are entirely borne by the municipality/shelter.  So under this framework, TNR usually ends up costing the shelter or local government less.

Hope that's helpful!

In my area (western NY), the comparison is between the cost of doing nothing about community cats, and the cost of doing something.  A small minority of towns has AC's who are expected to do anything at all, with cats.  Does your municipality trap and kill?