Spring Low Cost Spay and Neuter Day is April 14th!

It's that time of year again and WIFCaP will be sponsoring a low cost spay and neuter day at Harlan Veterinary Associates and Referral Center in Harlan Iowa!
Your cat will receive spay/neuter surgery and vaccinations for rabies and distemper.  If the cat goes outdoors, we recommend a left ear notch for identification purposes, should he/she ever get trapped.

This event is limited to 30 cats - register early!

Cost is $50

Date: Thursday April 14, 2016

Time:  Drop off 8am   Pick-up same afternoon

Place:  910 Chatburn Ave - Harlan, IA

MUST Pre register and Prepay.   

Email cats@wifcap.org to register and to get payment informaion

Please pass the word....this is a one day only event.  

*Please note: the cost for this proceedure is $10-15 more per cat.  WIFCaP is covering the difference.  Your donation to help with this granted amount is appreciated.

Spring is Heating Up!

As February comes to an end and Spring is on the horizon, WIFCap is "heating up" for a very busy spring.

Kathy's garage can get quite full during trapping season!

Kathy has been busy taking calls from people with cat overpopulation problems and she has been spotting local kitties that need help too.

Lost or abandoned cats need help!

She is keeping a log of incoming and upcoming problem locations and to date, she has a wait list of 81 cats in the local area that need help.

Some of these cats are running in towns creating issues with mating, howling, fighting and getting in the trash.  We work with communities to get them fixed, vaccinated and hopefully to a location where they can be fed daily.  Our goal is to keep the cats in the area in which they are found because this is HOME to them and if we remove, others will most likely take their place.

Rural cats have a job, but population control is a must!

Some cats are part of a rural colony that is being fed, perhaps by the property owner but are creating a never ending supply of babies that struggle to survive.  Did you know that a tom cat can wander ten miles a day...?  Think all the places he can "visit" during that roam!

We are happy that some communities and many more individuals are coming forward, asking for help and offering to also financially back this effort in part or in full.

You can help by clicking our DONATE button top left sidebar!

We would ask that our supporters and those interested in what we do, to remember that we are not a shelter, or a rescue.  Our focus is on TNR...Trap, Neuter and Return or Release...we have no physical building or place to house surrendered pets.

We want you to keep your kitty - how can we help?

We would, however love to work with people for find ways they can keep their pet and in some instances, we can offer assistance in finding a new home for a cat that cannot be kept.

We are so fortunate to be working with Harlan Veterinary Associates and Referral Center in Harlan Iowa to help as many cats as possible.  We thank them for partnering with us and giving us quality care and kindness!

Dr. Matthew Sternberg and his team are awesome!

Please call  or email us if you have questions !

Ending the year in a big way!

Its only 3 days until the end of 2014 and I have to admit, this has been a crazy year!   I've actually had to take out my old calendar pages to review what all has been happening around Western Iowa Feral Cat Land to remember.  It's gone so fast and furious that it all seems a blur!


What I do know is that we TNR'd as many cats in 2014 as we did in the two years before combined.

How did that happen?
 LOTs of time, gas and hard work!

Our volunteer staff has not increased that much.  For one that we gained, we have lost another.  The team that actually does the trapping has remained me and one faithful other.

We've added support volunteers that can do things like print and laminate and go on the road to pick up food at pantries.  I know that it isn't that friends don't want to help, it s that they cant.  Work, family...life gets in the way and not everyone is available to come all the way out here at the crack of dawn and at dusk when trapping is the best.

Adding traps to our inventory has helped a TON...Thanks to Best Friends Animal Society, we added two more traps and that has meant more kitties in for spa treatments!

Adding a wonderful vet to our partnership!   Harlan Veterinary Associates and Referral Center has been wonderful to us.  A great supporter of TNR and offering us a price that affords us the opportunity to fix more kitties locally!

Dr. Sternberg and Anne at work!

More and more people and towns are taking responsibility to their own cat issues.  This means they are open to TNR and open to helping pay for it.

This was kind of a year of discoveries for me.  I discovered that kitten care is hard.  Even with wonderful volunteers to help, it is a difficult and demanding job.  We had lots of kittens this past summer and we are still trying to find homes for the last two.   We found out that they get sick, they carry disease and sometimes they even die.   We know we have made their little lives better and that they have felt loved, but its a strain on volunteers and it's expensive.

We discovered that our focus HAS to remain on TNR and not rescue.  We have no where to hold the strays,  while trying to find homes. Again, the strain of that has been heavy, to the point of even loosing some of the help we had.  It is so hard to say "no" when the call of a friendly stray or a litter of kittens comes in.

We discovered that there are lots of people that want to help us financially!    I can honestly say that we have never had to be late on a bill.  Our friends on Facebook are amazing and without them, we could not TNR ONE cat!  Thanks to everyone that bids on our auctions, purchases from our many fundraisers and/or sends a check or makes a donation to paypal!  We can happily say that ALL your funds go to helping the kitties.  We have very little overhead (I need to buy a ream of copy paper) and we attempt to spend all your dollars on fixing cats!

I've discovered that while this is my passion and none of it feels like work to me (other than maybe the bookkeeping), I have to limit myself.  I have traveled over 80 miles one way to trap cats, then more miles to transport them to the vet and then all the way back home.   I get phone calls at all hours about problems, I spend many hours every day working on TNR, Facebook, accounting etc.

And so, decisions have had to be made.   We held our final meeting of the Board of Directors earlier in December and so far here is what we are considering:

Kittens and Stray Friendly Cats :   We are trying to find a rescue that we can work with to refer these to.

Financial giving:  We will continue our methods of fundraising while adding grant writing.  We have a volunteer that will begin helping us with that in January!

Limiting Scope of Assistance:  While the need is great, we can only do so much.  The communities around us have great need and we will begin focusing on those communities.  The communities are Walnut, Harlan, Avoca,  Hancock, Minden, Oakland, Atlantic, and Shelby.   We will continue to assist other communities with issues by offering education and training in TNR).  Watch for targeted TNR projects over the summer in some of these communities!




So!  Goodbye 2014 and hello 2015!  It's going to be a fun ride!