Toronto Feral Cat Survey FAQs:
What is the Toronto Feral Cat Survey?
The Toronto Feral Cat Survey (the Survey) is an initiative of the Toronto Feral Cat Project (Project). The Survey holds information on feral cat colonies in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Like all surveys, it is only as good as the information entered into it. This is why it is essential that you make sure your colony is being reported to the Survey, that the information you input is accurate, and that you keep your information up to date.
Every 3 months, a member of the Project's team will contact the primary caretaker of your colony, and remind her/him to update information on your colony in the Survey, or to confirm that nothing has changed.
What type of cats are included in the Survey?
In the Survey, "feral" includes both stray and feral cats. A "colony" is a "managed colony", which is defined as a group of stray or feral cats who congregate in a single location that is managed by humans for the purpose of sheltering and/or feeding the cats, or for practicing TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return).
In order to paint a complete picture of the number of stray and feral cats in the Greater Toronto Area, the Project will of course need to take into account the number of cats living outside who are not part of any managed colony. However, since data on unmanaged colonies is by its nature likely to be less precise than that for managed colonies, a separate, ancillary survey will, for now, record unmanaged colonies. Therefore, if you wish to report a colony of stray or feral cats who are not part of a managed colony (i.e. no feeding, sheltering or TNR takes place, please complete our short ancillary survey
What sort of questions do you ask in the Survey?
You can print out a Preview of the questions asked in the Survey before completing it online. Help is provided for many sections in the Survey and is flagged by the 
icon.
Why are you collecting this information?
Feral cats are a fact of life in the GTA, but the secretive lifestyle of ferals makes it hard to describe the dimensions of the problem. How many feral cats are there in the GTA? How many caretakers are caring for how many feral colonies? When feral cats emerge from their secret lives, they often cause problems for humans. They can be noisy, dirty and diseased, and desperately need human care. Yet when cat advocates propose solutions such as TNR to the general public or to local governments, their proposals often fall on deaf ears. This is because it is hard to talk convincingly about the feral problem if we lack accurate facts and numbers.
The aim of the Survey is therefore to provide data to cat advocates that will allow them to describe the feral cat problem in terms that city councillors and the general public will understand, using information in which they can have confidence.
The Toronto Feral Cat Project will also sponsor public education materials and events that will bring the feral cat problem out into the open, and enable all interested parties to search for solutions together.
What will you do with the information collected through the Survey? What part of it will be shared and how will it be shared?
In addition to offering the most comprehensive data on the feral cat problem in the GTA, the Toronto Feral Cat Project will periodically take "snapshots" of the Survey that will be presented on our Web site. These snapshots will show changes over time such as the growth in the number of colonies, colony size, TNR activity, adoptions, deaths, colony worker numbers, and so on. These reports will:
- give cat advocates better quality data to make the case for ferals within their communities
- provide better quality data that can be used by municipal animal services departments to advocate for humane care and control strategies before their city councils
- form the basis of discussion and decisions within the Toronto Feral Cat Project
- fuel the Project's ability to develop and recommend best practices in TNR and colony management for the entire GTA
BUT REMEMBER: the success of this survey rests in YOUR hands. YOU must report your colony and YOU must keep your information up-to-date.
Who is behind the Toronto Feral Cat Project?
Current and former board members of Spaycentral Toronto initiated the Project by launching this Web site and the Survey. Project participants will include individuals, animal welfare organizations, and municipalities. The Project believes strongly that our cities have a crucial role to play in addressing the feral cat problem. Collaborators in the Project must also embrace this principle and work conscientiously and positively with cities to build the types of partnerships that will enable us to collectively solve feral cat issues. If your organization would like to participate in the Project, please contact us.
How can I find out if my colony is already in the Survey?
It may happen from time to time that a colony has multiple caretakers who are not in communication with each other. So contact us first to see if your colony is being reported to the Survey.
How can I contribute data on my colony to the Survey?
First you must make sure your colony is not already being reported to the Survey. If it is not, register with the Project, then begin entering data about your colony. We will contact you by phone shortly after your initial registration, to verify that you are a bona fide feral cat colony worker/caretaker. In this way, we ensure only valid data is entered into the Survey.
If you would like to see the type of information you will need to have on hand in order to complete the Survey, print out the Preview of the Survey questions.
When you enter information into the Survey, you have the opportunity to "Save" completed sections, and may return to the Survey later, to complete the remaining sections.
In addition to entering information into the Survey, how else can I participate in the Toronto Feral Cat Project?
The Project welcomes interest and participation from individuals, animal welfare organizations and municipalities. Raising the public's awareness of feral cats and building capacity within the cat rescue community and municipalities of the GTA to address the feral cat problem are top priorities for the Project. If you would like to join us by volunteering your expertise in any of the following areas, please contact us:
- Public relations / advertising / public speaking
- Graphic design / printing
- Fundraising
- Workshop / conference planning
- Volunteer coordination
- Volunteer training
- Trap-Neuter-Return training
Personal information that identifies colony caretakers is collected for administrative purposes only and is kept completely confidential. We will not share any caretaker's name, address, email, telephone number or other personal information with any third party.
If a person contacts the Project with the intention of volunteering to work in a colony, we will transmit the volunteer's contact information to the nearest caretaker(s) and allow the caretaker(s) to follow up (or not) with the volunteer.
Remember that the purpose of the data collection is to provide a picture of the numbers - how many cats? How many caretakers? How many colonies are in residential areas? How many are in industrial areas? How many caretakers are performing TNR? How much do colonies grow over time? Personal information that identifies caretakers is of no value in capturing these numbers.
Since it is important to know if there is an increase or decrease in feral cat numbers in a given area of the GTA, or an increase in the number of colonies active in a given area, we do need to know where your colony is located. However, we do not need to know exactly where your colony is located. We therefore require caretakers to report the nearest intersection to the colony. The choice of intersection can be exact, or several blocks away from the actual colony location.
We also ask (but do not require) caretakers to provide the street address of the colony. When given, this information is never shared with third parties; it is only used to clarify any boundary issues.
When should I update my colony information?
A member of the Project's team will contact the primary caretaker of each colony every 3 months, to prompt her/him to update her/his colony information.
Between 3-monthly updates, it is often easier to update your colony information immediately a change occurs. This avoids the problem of having to memorize changes for the 3-monthly update. So you may log into your account at any time to record changes, such as when cats disappear, are sterilized, adopted, etc. Also, make sure to update your information if workers leave or join the colony, or the state of your resources (cages, traps, etc.) changes.
Every aspect of your operations is important, and tracking the changes between information input in one quarter compared to the next helps us identify where progress is being made, and where problems are becoming more severe.
Remember: even if nothing changes from one reporting period to another, you should still log into your colony account on our Web site, and report that your status is unchanged. You can do this quickly by going directly to the last section of the Survey and selecting the "Submit" button.
Do you plan to organize public information sessions on feral cats?
Public information sessions on feral cats are a top educational priority for the Project. If you have special skills or past experience of public information sessions on feral cats, we want to hear from you now.
If you have questions or concerns that are not answered by these FAQs please contact the Project.
Public information FAQs