Alley Cat Allies, one of the nation’s leading advocates for community cats, is enlisting the support of veterinarians for trap-neuter-return programs.

The organization is asking veterinarians to sign a letter that reads:

Nationwide, increasing numbers of veterinarians treat feral cats in their practices or work with high-quality, high-volume spay/neuter clinics in recognition of the fact that discontinuing the breeding cycle is the only effective and humane approach to stabilizing feral cat populations.

Thanks to Trap-Neuter-Return, long-established colonies of cats live out their lives—peacefully and healthfully—and the colonies decrease in size over time. In Washington, D.C., a colony of community cats in the Adams Morgan neighborhood was eventually reduced to zero after a TNR program was implemented in 1990. Washington, D.C., along with New York City, San Francisco, and many other cities, has now officially adopted TNR. The number of local governments with policies favoring TNR has increased tenfold in the last decade.

Given this impressive progress and successes seen in communities embracing TNR, we continue to be dismayed by attacks on TNR programs. We stand behind the fact that TNR programs have been successful in communities nationwide and are the best practice for stabilizing community cat populations.

Veterinarians who want to show their support, non-veterinarians who would like to forward the letter to a veterinarian they know, and those who want more information can visit the campaign page here.