Introducing the Boonie Colony

Melissa has done TNR all around this area for years. She’s moved apartments a few times here and finds cats at each location. We’ve worked on TNR together near the Cell Phones Colony. Her sister has adopted a few cats from there.

Even though Melissa no longer lives there, she visits almost daily and replenishes the food and water for the colony in this feeding station.

It’s really cool – that feeding station has been in the alley for months and no one messes with it.

When Melissa moved to her latest apartment she noticed a lot of cats outside. That’s how we found the Armando Colony, just a few doors down from her. Along with our friend Heather, we TNReturned and rescued 18 cats and kittens so far from that location.

But there were still more cats coming around to Melissa’s yard, so for several nights this month we set up traps. Melissa doesn’t even feed, but the cats came anyways. We have since determined there is another colony up the block, but so far the feeder is not compliant.

We have TNR’d five cats now from Melissa’s yard. I call this the Boonie Colony, named after one of Melissa’s pit bulls. The amazing thing about Melissa is that she is actually a dog person, and volunteers all the time at Chicago Animal Care and Control. But she also of course cares for all animals, and believes in TNR.

One of the cats we trapped was already ear tipped. She looked good, so we released her immediately. This is just the third all-white cat I’ve ever come across outside in over a decade of TNR.

The rest of the five cats we trapped were all male and taken to the clinic for their TNR spa package.

Boonie was the first cat we trapped. Obviously he was named after Melissa’s dog, and I consider him the mascot of this colony. He had a broken canine, but is healthy and now neutered.

He had a lot of great poses, so Jim made a gif.

TNR is good. Yes!

When we trapped Donut, we could see he is obviously friendly, and also had a very, very tight, frayed old collar around his neck. He was neutered at the clinic, tested negative for FIV/FeLV, and we did not ear tip him. Heather was able to get him admitted into Felines & Canines, Inc. for adoption into an indoor home. Here he is in their isolation room.

Spaulding is another brown tabby that we trapped. He also had a broken canine, and was treated for nasal discharge.  Whip is another very healthy orange boy, also now TNR’d.

Scruffles is a grey boy with a big old wound on his head.

The wound was cleaned and treated, and he was TNR’d without further problems.

We’ll keep trapping at this location to see what other cats show up. Thanks for all that you do, Melissa!