WASHINGTON -- Louise Holton often jokes that she never tells people how many cats she has. Because, in truth, the number is impossible to count.
In the United States, there are the more than 60 million feral cats (semi-wild felines that have grown up without human contact), and Holton has taken responsibility for each one of them.
The 58-year-old is the co-founder of Alley Cat Allies, a national nonprofit organization based in Washington. Working out of offices in the city's funky Adams-Morgan neighborhood, the 13-member staff answers some 500 calls a month, gives out advice on handling feral cats, and cares for some decidedly non-ferals that sleep on whatever lap is available.
The group's goal is to control the feral cat population by sterilization. Killing a group or colony of ferals doesn't work in the long term, the Allies say, because others move in to fill the void left behind and begin the breeding process all over again. Only if a cat is suffering and beyond medical treatment should it be euthanized.
"We're trying to teach people that feral cats are feral cats," Holton said. "They've been living this way for thousands of years. They're part of the urban ecology. They're such survivors, and part of that is to scavenge around humans. They haven't changed all that much in 4,000 years."
She and co-founder Becky Robinson, 42, believe in the concept of "trap, neuter and return" -- or TNR. They catch ferals in metal cages, take them to vets for spaying or neutering, and then return them to their colonies.
TNR has been used for more than 20 years in Great Britain and South Africa, where Holton first learned about it. The Johannesburg native had been caring for a colony of about 15 ferals and took her charges to be neutered and vaccinated at a clinic run by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA).
Frustrated by South Africa's apartheid system and tired of her job with the Johannesburg stock exchange, Holton moved to Connecticut in 1986 to work on animal issues. Three years later, she moved to Washington and became reacquainted with Robinson, whom she'd met at an animal rights conference. After dining out one summer night in 1990, the women walked into an alley in Adams-Morgan inhabited by a colony of feral cats and kittens. Holton remarked that this would be good place for a little TNR and was surprised to learn that the practice had not caught on in the United States.
