Welcome to the Campus Cat Coalition website!  

Feral cats have long been an issue on the UT-Austin campus. In the past, the administration periodically had the cats trapped and destroyed in an effort to eradicate them. It was only a quick fix and never really solved the problem. Eventually more cats showed up. So in 1995, cat-lovers from around campus united and formed a coalition. We convinced the administration to let us take over the care and control of the feral cats by implementing a more humane control practice (sterilization). They agreed.

The Campus Cat Coalition is an all-volunteer organization. We are full-time staff members and donate our spare time to the group. We manage the population of feral (antisocial) cats that live on the main campus and the Pickle Research Center. We are sanctioned by the University but do not receive funding from them - we run the program from contributions alone. We are a registered UT staff organization. Our group is currently under the umbrella of the Animal Make Safe Program of UT's Office of Environmental Health & Safety.

The system we use to control the campus cat population is commonly referred to as "TNRM" (trap, neuter, return, manage). It's innovative, it's non-lethal and we have 13 years worth of statistics to prove that it really does work!  We catch adult cats in cage traps and transport them to local veterinarians where they're examined, spayed/neutered, vaccinated, and ear tipped (for identification). After a few days of recovery time they're brought back to campus and released into their home territory. We then feed and monitor them daily. Feral kittens are caught, socialized, and placed up for adoption. The purpose of our program is to decrease the number of cats on campus. We do not add feral cats to our colonies from other locations and we are not a shelter.

As of January 2008 there are approximately 20 remaining sterilized adult cats living on campus in small colonies. This number has gradually decreased over the years through natural attrition. No new litters of kittens have been born here for the past 7 years! Our statistics show that the program is working and working very well! With these results, we're happy, the administration is happy, and most important of all, the CATS are happy!

Please click on any of the links below to learn how we started our group and details of our program. The Helpful Links will direct you to other feral cat management programs around the country including other college programs. Thanks for visiting our site!