Neutering, Spraying and TNR

Please contact us if you need info about rescued animals or neutering operations.

We may be able to help with vet expenses on a case by case basis. However, no all vets are cooperative and our budget is limited, so you need to contact us first to explain what is needed.

Also, check out our recommended veterinarians page.

KARA's TRAP, NEUTER, RELEASE (TNR) CAMPAIGN

In Korea, there are government designated veterinarian clinics available for TNR programs. Not just any veterinarian clinic can get to be in the TNR program. The clinic has to be of a certain size and capacity, and the veterinarian has have the ability to hire workers to trap the cats at citizen’s requests, spay and neuter them, and then take them back to the area where they were first caught.

Since the TNR program is supported by the local government office, it is free of charge to the public. Therefore, KARA is able to use the TNR system for the stray cats in Seoul neighbourhoods.

Others are welcome to participate in TNRs of their own.

TIPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL TNR OF STRAY CATS

A number of points are critical in TNR success.

1. TNR can Not be Truly Called a TNR Without a Caretaker.

Cats must be observed closely by Caretakers in case of special circumstances associated with the cats. For example, special care and attention must be taken to prevent mother cats from being torn away from their nursing kittens in order to undergo spaying. The vulnerable newly born kittens need their real mother's care to survive.

Take the case of a young 6 month old mother cat whose newborn kittens were hidden. If it was trapped and administered anesthetic, it can be an extremely traumatic experience and is a violation of cat welfare. Her capacity to be a mother is much reduced and she might be kept away from the kittens for days. This situation would be disastrous.

2. Trapping With Minmum Stress

After trapping, the trap should be completely covered to calm the occupants. Every effort should be made to reduce the stress the cats were undergoing by transporting them to the veterinary clinic as quickly as possible.

3. Good Surgery is Critical

It is of the utmost importance that the spay/neuter surgery be done expertly and accurately by a skillful veterinarian in a very clean and hygienic environment. The one-time surgery can determine the life and death of a cat once it is out on the streets.

Cats are often released into a rough street environment. They have to be able to survive it because it is very difficult to recapture them afterwards if they have medical complications or get into trouble.

4. Proper Release Procedure

If the cats are not released in the exact spot they were captured, the cats are more likely to die. It is also crucial that cat caretakers release the cats and are able to monitor the released cats for a period afterwards.

Furthermore, neutered animals should get post surgical rest and recovery time in a clean and quiet environment to ensure their safety. In the case of the neutered male cats, they need one whole day to rest and recuperate at least, whereas for the spayed female cat needs at least three days.

5. After Care by Caretakers

Without caretakers, there is no way of knowing whether TNR cats are in the area, well fed, alive or dead, because non-neutered cats will fight them to compete for food and territorial gain. Neutered cats will often lose such fights. When TNR cats lose their competitiveness for food and turf, the true purpose and meaning of TNR is lost.

Under the auspices of the caretakers, TNR cats can become part of a safety network of a local cat colony. A healthy cat colony can be maintained and the reduction of the cat population can be managed.

Caretakers of recently spayed/neutered cats should ensure that enough food and clean water is left in the street, in a secure location, where the cats can find it.

According to the research on caretakers and cat relationships done in 2002 in the United States, caretakers worked with a genuine, compassionate heart toward animals, and thus the cats that were under their care and observation were able to survive.

Likewise in KARA's experience, cat caretakers have a positive effect on the outcome and success of a TNR. The cats who had good relations with their caretakers returned to their regular routines faster after their neuter/spay surgeries and release.

Trap, Neuter, Releases Menu

Few people seem to perceive fully as yet that the most far-reaching consequence of the establishment of the common origin of all species is ethical; that it logically involved a re-adjustment of altruistic morals by enlarging as a necessity of rightness the application of what has been called “The Golden Rule” beyond the area of mere mankind to that of the whole animal kingdom.

Thomas Hardy

They are not brethren; they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.

Henry Beston

The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but rather, "Can they suffer?

Jeremy Bentham

I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.

Henry David Thoreau

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favour freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are people who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

Frederick Douglass

I know, in my soul, that to eat a creature who is raised to be eaten, and who never has a chance to be a real being, is unhealthy. It's like...you're just eating misery. You're eating a bitter life.

Alice Walker

As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.

Pythagoras

Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they're only animals.

Theodor Adorno

We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.

William Ralph Inge

In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis. Human beings see oppression vividly when they're the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought.

Isaac Bashevis Singer

All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals.

Peter Singer

A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.

Leo Tolstoy

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

Mahatma Gandhi

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.

Thomas Edison

Animals are my friends... and I don't eat my friends.

George Bernard Shaw

The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.

Charles Darwin

I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.

Leonardo Da Vinci

Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.

Albert Einstein