Feral For Life

National Feral Cat Day

 

If you can't make it please consider donating via Feral for Life 

or buying one of our shirts or tote bags!

I Brake for Ferals Bumper Sticker (Pre-Order)

 

Designed by the amazing Erik Kiesewetter. 

Each bumper sticker measures 11-by-3 inches.

How Many Stickers Do You Want?

1 sticker $2.50 5 stickers $10.00 T-shirt and sticker $27.00

Shirt Style/Size

Feral for Life, small Feral for Life, medium Feral for Life, large Feral for Life, XL Check Meowt!, XS Check Meowt!, small Check Meowt!, medium Check Meowt!, large Check Meowt!, XL

Feral for Life Gender

New Shirt! Pre-Order Now!

 

In honor of National Feral Cat Day we've made a new shirt. Designed by our friend Sarah Han, this new top will be available on October 16th (a.k.a. NFCD). Printed with dark gray ink on Alternative Apparel's Ice Blue Dean Slub Crew. 

This is gonna be H-O-T!

$25!

Select a Size (unisex)

xs small medium large xl

Buy the T-Shirt, Live the Feral Life

Shirts: $25

Designed by Martina Fugazzotto, the Feral for Life logo is printed on black Alternative Apparel sheer crews for women (Queen) and black  basic crews for men (Tomcat). All are printed with gold ink.

Select a Size

small medium large xl

Tom Cat or Queen?

Totes: $15

Totes are printed on black canvas. They measure 16-by-14 inches.

Shirt/Tote Combo: $35

Select a Size

small medium large xl

Tom Cat or Queen?

Feral For Life is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Don't steal. It's bad karma.

Cats Gone Wild

There are no official statistics on the number of homeless cats in Brooklyn, but guesstimates are that they're in the hundreds of thousands. Feral cats are homeless felines that have been out on the street so long that they've reverted to their wild instincts. In many instances, these cats haven't been spayed or neutered, and a small colony can quickly explode into a large one.

A handful of dedicated volunteers spend their free time trapping these ferals in order to have them spayed or neutered and then vaccinated. Trap-neuter-return, as it's called, ultimately helps reduce the number of cats on the streets while also limiting territorial spraying and the noise of caterwauling animals in heat.

Independent rescuers in Brooklyn receive some financial assistance from nonprofit groups such as Urban Cat League, Slope Street Cats, and the New York ASPCA, but not all medical or caretaking costs are covered by these donations. Many volunteers spend their own money to feed colonies.

Doesn't feeding lure more ferals into an area? Actually, no. Cats are very territorial. Once they've found a spot to call home, they tend to kick out strangers. If you have a spayed and neutered colony, you can rest assured that the colony won't grow due to either new squatters or new babies.

But doesn't feeding keep them from leaving? Not necessarily. When you find a colony of ferals, they've already picked their location whether or not they're being fed or not. They've found a location that provides them with shelter and that provides them with food. In most cases, when caretakers aren't present to provide actual cat food, the cats tend to eat by tearing open garbage bags for leftovers. This can be a major nuisance for whoever has to clean up the torn up bags. Feeding the ferals cat food on a regular basis deters them from more destructive means of surviving.

Aside from paying for food, many rescuers also pull out of their own pocket to obtain additional medical attention for sick cats or kittens, and more often than not, find homes for the many friendly cats found living among the ferals.

Technically speaking, TNR stands for trap-neuter-return, but in many cases it translates to trap-neuter-rescue. I found this out during a TNR project in my neighborhood. Five of the thirteen cats we trapped were friendly, and rather than put them back on the street, where they wouldn't have survived for long, we cared for them ourselves or placed them in foster homes until permanent homes were found. Transportation, food, and litter for all these fosters costs money that in most cases comes out of a rescuer's own pocket.

Feral for Life is an attempt to raise funds to support Brooklyn's independent cat rescuers. Money will go not only to help pay for food and other necessities for our fosters, but also to pay for the food independent rescuers buy on their own to feed the feral colonies in their neighborhoods.

By purchasing a T-shirt or tote, you help Brooklyn's independent rescuers continue to help the borough's homeless cats and kittens.

Who You Help with Your Purchase

On May 1st I was given a four-week old kitten a fellow rescuer had found abandoned in her backyard. Since this little lady had to be fed every few hours, and this rescuer was in college, I agreed to take her in.

From the instant I held her I knew she was something special. She was adorable, trusting, and oh so loving. Within minutes she had curled up under my chin for a nap.

When she was up, she never acted like a four-week old. She wanted to play with the big kids, running and tumbling with my other cats, curiously swatting at strings, and pummeling small toys.

She was a brave one, who wasn't scared of anything, including my 14-year-old dog Lulu. And there was nothing to be scared of. Lulu loved cats (she lived with three after all) and had a motherly instinct you just want to bottle up.

Honeybee, as she was named, loved to hang out with Lulu. She followed her around like a little sister, slept on Lulu's bed when she was tired, and ran around the backyard investigating everything Lulu did.

On Thursday morning, May 15th, I woke up, fed Honeybee, and then put her on Lulu's bed to play. I turned around to head to the bathroom and within 30 seconds heard Lulu squeal. When I turned around she was sitting (she had been laying down before) and Honeybee was gasping for air. I grabbed my keys, got in the car, and took her to the nearest ER, Veterinary Emergency & Referral Group. There I was told by Dr. Stronger, that Honeybee had suffered some kind of head trauma. The doctor thought Lulu had either accidentally stepped on or fell on her (Lulu unfortunately occasionally loses her balance because she only has three legs).

They put her in an oxygen incubator within intensive care and for the next four days she slowly improved to the point that she was off oxygen and eating via syringe.

On the fourth day, Lori, a nurse at the ER, agreed to take Honeybee home with her in order to continue working with her, as well as to offset some of the costs of the ER (the bill had hit $1,500)

Over the next few days, Honeybee continued to improve. She was starting to walk again, eat on her own, and really respond to stimuli around her. By Friday the 23rd, Lori told me that if things continued to improve I'd be able to take her home the following week. I was elated and couldn't believe I had found such a generous and kind soul as Lori.

On Saturday, May 24th, Lori gave me the tragic news that Honeybee had passed away. She had been fine all day and sat patiently in her carrier on the drive to the ER for Lori's shift. When they got to the ER and Lori went to take her out, Lori discovered that she was gone. The ER vets performed CPR, but it was too late. It's believed that a blood clot suddenly killed her.

There couldn't be a more tragic end to this little dumpling's life.

When I came up with the idea of making shirts to offset rescue costs I was hoping this story would have a happy ending, but unfortunately when you take in the city's strays occasionally tragic accidents occur.

Each of the independent rescuers in Brooklyn can tell you a similar story of taking on hundreds and even thousands of dollars in vet bills to help the strays that come into their homes before finding them permanent families. Not all of us have freak accidents, thank god, but we all deal with stomach bugs, upper respiratory issues, eye infections, and much more. When we take in cats, we almost always also take on medical expenses. These shirts will help us offset these expenses.