Our trappers caught 137 cats this year and helped to spay another 11. 70 kittens went to shelters for adoption. 5 Adults did too. 2 cats were reunited with their owners, yielding one of my favorite moments of 2025. These numbers are pretty cool considering we only caught 62 cats last year. They get cooler if you break them down though.

Breaking it Down

There were 39 female cats caught and then released. If you expect each lady to mother 2 litters a year, each averaging 5 kittens, we might have prevented 390 kittens next year. That's a drop in the bucket though if you look past 2026.

In a perfect world, from the cats’ eyes, where no cats die from predation, starvation, or from being attacked by humans you could expect those moms to keep procreating, but also the average 50% of kittens to be female and start too. 2027 would yield another 2340 kittens in Ankeny.

Do the same math again for 2028 and you have 11,700 kittens. These estimations don't take into account the 30+ female kittens that aren't in the community anymore, either, which would double them. Cats reproduce exponentially unless they’re contained by predation or starvation. They will boom until they bust.

Why should you care about these numbers?

A common sentiment on local Facebook groups is that "stray cats shouldn’t exist! They shouldn’t be put back in the community!" We agree with the first part of the statement, in an ideal world community cats wouldn’t exist. They’d never be abandoned when their owners move. They’d never get scared, bolt, and not be able to find their way home.

However the solution that argument usually accompanies is to kill the cats. Our group isn’t ok with doing that. We’re softies and don’t really want to kill cats that had no choice in where they had to live. Often they are generations removed from the original strays in their family tree.

The way we see it, we’re playing the long game. The more cats we catch and fix, the fewer kittens. Most community cats only live, on average, 3 years. On a long enough timeline the cat population begins to reduce. Indianola and Panora have both successfully controlled their community cat population with TNR. We want to see the same success here in Ankeny.

We’ll keep working towards the goal of reducing the number of cats in 2026. If you want to help or need our help, reach out.