Trap-Neuter-Return: A Study of the Practice in Switzerland

3.4.1Select Criticisms of Swiss Animal Welfare Law

Several legal experts have produced detailed critical analyses of Swiss animal welfare law. This subsection will explore only a few aspects of these criticisms,153 in particular those that are most relevant to TNR. The first major criticism to consider is lack of protection of the life of animals. A number of scholars have noted that Swiss law protects animals’ dignity and prohibits their inhumane death, but it does not actually protect the life of animals. For example, Michel and Schneider Kayasseh write:

In contrast to the animal-protection laws in the German-speaking world (Germany and Austria) and to some degree in contrast to protection of the dignity of the Creature, in the Swiss Animal Protection Act there is regrettably no protection for the life of the animal. This means that the killing of an animal is still fundamentally allowed so long as it remains within the parameters of the Animal Protection Act.154

In this vein, Bolliger points out that it is legal in Switzerland to euthanize a healthy animal, even if, “from an ethical and animal welfare point of view,” euthanasia “without good reason should clearly be rejected.”155 This is relevant to TNR as, for example, the law could allow for the trapping and killing of healthy feral cats as long as there is no suffering.156 What is more, proving that an animal did not suffer while being killed presents considerable difficulties.157 Secondly, sanctions of animal mistreatment are light. According to Article 26 of the AWA, animal cruelty or neglect, including abandonment of an animal, can be criminally sanctioned by a prison term of up to three years, or a fine. But the cantons, which are responsible for ensuring enforcement of the AWA,158 prosecute violations of this law unevenly (see below), and where there are convictions at all, “as a rule people are let off with a fine of some several hundred Swiss francs.”159 Gerritsen reports that imprisonment solely for animal crimes is very rare.160 Related to this, then, is a third major criticism: that animal welfare law enforcement is uneven, varying considerably from one canton to another. Gerritsen asserts that this is due to a “deeply anchored federalism” in Switzerland, which means that the way cantons enforce laws “strongly depends on the respective cantonal government’s attitude.”161 Thus, “[c]onspicuously small cantons without urban areas show more difficulties

¹⁵¹ TSchV, Art. 24(a) [das Amputieren der Krallen von Hauskatzen und anderen Katzenartigen (Felidae)]. Unless otherwise indicated below, the English translations of text from the TSchV are from the unofficial English version provided here https://www.blv.admin.ch/dam/blv/en/dokumente/tiere/rechts-und-vollzugsgrundlagen/animal-welfare-ordinance-

tschv.pdf.download.pdf/Animal_Welfare_Ordinance_(TSchV)_position_as_at_1.4.2011.pdf

¹⁵² TSchV., Art. 80, para. 1 [Einzeln gehaltene Katzen müssen täglich Umgang mit Menschen oder Sichtkontakt mit Artgenossen haben]

¹⁵³ Bolliger discusses major weaknesses of Swiss animal welfare law, such as its failure to cover animals other than vertebrates, cephalopods and decapods, and its failure to prohibit instrumentalization of animals through, e.g. animal research and factory farming (Bolliger, G. Legal Protection of Animal Dignity…, cit., section V.F.) These and other criticisms are beyond the scope of this article.¹⁵⁴ Michel, M., Schneider Kayasseh, E. The Legal Situation…, cit., 15. They are referring to the TSchG.

¹⁵⁵ Bolliger, G. Legal Protection of Animal Dignity…, cit., 358; see Ibid., n. 444 for references to other scholars who criticize Swiss law for its lack of protection of animals’ lives. Bolliger also points out (n. 344) that Swiss animal welfare law “sets strict general standards regarding the (lawful) killing of vertebrates, cephalopods and decapods.” For more on why Swiss animal welfare law does not protect animals’ lives per se, see Ibid., 357. It is worth noting that the code of ethics of the Society of Swiss Veterinarians prohibits the killing of healthy animals. NetAP cites this point in a discussion of the killing of feral cats in Switzerland. See Network for Animal Protection. Hochrechnung Katzentötungen Schweiz: Mindestens 100’000 Katzen warden pro Jahr in der Schweiz getötet! (10 September 2014) https://www.netap.ch/images/Downloads/100000-Katzentoetungen_Zahlen_201400910-Berechnumg-NetAP.pdf¹⁵⁶ TSchG, Art. 26, para. 1(b) says: “Anyone who willfully…deliberately and without provocation kills an animal in a manner that causes it suffering” is liable to a fine or imprisonment [wer vorsätzlich… Tiere auf qualvolle Art oder aus Mutwillen tötet]

¹⁵⁷ This point was made in a press article about a cat found bludgeoned to death on a Swiss farm in 2017. The animal welfare group that found the cat suspected the farmer in the cat’s killing, but Vanessa Gerritsen of TIR, quoted in the article, points out that for there to be a conviction for willingly inflicting pain, there must be proof of the animal’s suffering, which is very difficult to establish. 20min.ch. Bauern sollen keine Katzen töten dürfen. 12 September 2017 https://www.20min.ch/schweiz/news/story/Bauern-sollenkeine-Katzen-toeten-duerfen-21478946 [Last consulted 28 May 2019]

¹⁵⁸ TSchG, Art. 32, para. 2 and Art. 33

¹⁵⁹ Michel, M., Schneider Kayasseh, E. The Legal Situation…, cit., 16-17 (one Swiss franc is roughly equivalent to one US dollar). As the authors note, the animal law organization Stiftung für das Tier im Recht has demonstrated this laxity in its annual analysis of Swiss law enforcement of animal welfare provisions (Ibid., 16).

¹⁶⁰ Gerritsen, V. Animal Welfare in Switzerland…, cit., 3, n.9. See also Bolliger, G. Legal Protection of Animal Dignity…, cit., n. 504¹⁶¹ Gerritsen, V. Animal Welfare in Switzerland…, cit., 11 — S. 72 —with providing enough personnel seriously to fulfil federal standards, although there are some positive exceptions.”¹⁶² As a result, some cantons report few or no violations of animal welfare law in a year, “which is simply unrealistic.”¹⁶³ The independent Swiss not-for-profit organization, Stiftung für das Tier im Recht (hereafter, TIR), promotes the development of law and ethics for the protection of animals. TIR analyzes these discrepancies on an ongoing basis, and has attributed poor enforcement by certain cantons to their “disinterest and indifference”, concluding that violations of animal welfare laws “are still understood as trifles in many places.”¹⁶⁴ For his part, Bolliger, who is the executive director of TIR, argues that there is an “urgent need for better education of Swiss law enforcement agencies regarding animal welfare law in general.”¹⁶⁵ The lack of a consistent approach to animal welfare by local authorities is a point that emerged in numerous interviews with key figures working in TNR in Switzerland, and will be revisited in sections 4 and 5.

Fourthly, certain laws and regulations regarding animal welfare are marked by vague wording, which can lead to lack of, or difficulty in, enforcement. A case in point is Article 25(4) of the AWO, which provides that an animal owner “shall take reasonable precautions to prevent the animals from excessively reproducing.”¹⁶⁶ TNR proponents have pointed to this clause as problematic, because in not specifying the concept of “excessive” reproduction, the provision is also not consistently enforced.¹⁶⁷ In their view, a major contributing factor to the proliferation of feral and unowned cats in Switzerland, and thus to the suffering of these animals, is the fact that cat owners allow their intact pets to roam and breed with feral cats, despite the existence of this provision in the AWO. They assert that, in order to address this problem, the regulation must be made clearer and more enforceable. To this end, TIR and NetAP, with support from other animal welfare non-governmental organizations (NGOs), have filed a petition on mandatory castration of outdoor – that is, owned, free-roaming – cats with the federal government (to be discussed in depth in section 4). On the petition website, the NGOs state, with reference to AWO Art. 25(4): “This order is obviously not enough, it must be made concrete for free-roaming cats.”¹⁶⁸

3.4.2Relevant Swiss Laws in Relation to Cats

Research turned up few references in federal law specifically regarding stray or feral cats or colonies of unowned cats. According to the Swiss Civil Code, anyone who finds a lost animal must inform the owner or, if the owner is unknown, the competent authority (to be designated by the cantons); in the latter case, once two months have elapsed from the date of informing the authorities, the finder of the animal becomes the owner.¹⁶⁹ The Civil Code also notes that “Domesticated animals become ownerless once they regress to a feral state and no longer return to their masters.”¹⁷⁰

In October 2018, the FSVO published a document entitled “Questions and responses on castration of free-roaming cats and on electronic microchips.” The document, coming three months after the abovementioned petition, restates the AWA’s general prohibitions against mistreatment and abandonment of animals. It also recalls the AWO’s provision against excessive breeding, and warns of the need to castrate kittens early due to cats’ tendency to reproduce rapidly. And it notes that Austria requires castration of freeroaming (owned) cats and that most German states (“Länder”) have authorized their cities and towns to require — S. 73 —the same.¹⁷¹ The FSVO takes the position, however, that existing directives and criminal provisions in Switzerland are sufficient to prevent uncontrolled feline breeding, and it therefore rejects the petitioners’ argument that the law must be tightened or modified.¹⁷²

To the question of who is responsible for castrating “colonies of stray cats” (“des colonies de chats errants”), the FSVO states:

In principle, it is the keeper of animals who is responsible for their castration. It is therefore necessary to determine on a case by case basis to whom the cats belong. Every person who finds a stray cat should inform the competent cantonal office. If the owner does not appear, the person who found the cat becomes the owner at the end of two months (cf. art. 722 CC) and thus assumes the responsibility for its castration. If the person does not wish to take ownership of the animal, s/he should entrust it to a shelter, which then becomes the keeper and must take care of the castration.¹⁷³

This statement does not take account specifically of cat colony caregivers, who would neither take ownership of community cats nor turn them over to a shelter. The FSVO’s arguments, and animal welfare organizations’ rebuttal of its positions, will be taken up again in section 4, in a discussion of the abovementioned petition.

According to Isabelle Schnell, a lawyer with TIR, “there is no legal provision according to which the [local] community, i.e. the state, would be responsible” for unowned animals, though she points out that this would be “welcome from an animal welfare perspective.”¹⁷⁴ Section 4 will discuss two examples of cantonal or commune-level accords signed with TNR providers that seem promising in terms of local authorities’ facilitating castration campaigns. The apparent absence of specific ordinances in Switzerland dealing with cat colonies or feral cat populations contrasts with the US case; as mentioned in section 2, hundreds of local governments in the U.S. have enacted ordinances on TNR. And as will be discussed in section 5, feral cat advocates in various countries have found both obstacles in these ordinances and opportunities to work with lawmakers to create or modify local laws so as to facilitate TNR.

The Swiss case seems to stand apart from other countries where municipalities have embraced TNR and worked with practitioners to reform or create ordinances that support these operations. In this narrow sense, at least, Switzerland’s experience might echo that of the UK, about which Dufau has written, “there is a notable shortage of legal references regarding cats compared to dogs. The municipalities do not have jurisdiction over stray cats…for the cats, it is the [animal] protection organizations that take on the task of managing the colonies.”¹⁷⁵ Similarly, in Switzerland it has been animal welfare organizations, aided in crucial measure by volunteers, who have taken it on themselves to address feline overpopulation. To the extent that the research found examples of municipalities taking on a role in managing community cat populations, these were very narrow roles, and instances in which they were approached to support extant TNR initiatives carried out by animal welfare organizations.

In a related vein, one other legal provision worth noting is Article 5 of the Swiss federal hunting law, which allows feral cats to be hunted throughout the year.¹⁷⁶ As pointed out by NetAP and TIR, the two groups that launched the mandatory castration petition, each canton’s hunting law “determines if and under what conditions the cats can be killed.”¹⁷⁷ Pointing to existing provisions in the form of both the hunting law and — S. 74 —the AWO Art. 25(4) on the prevention of excessive breeding, the petitioners argue that there is a lack of regulation of the feline population in Switzerland: “Thus, animal protection legislation provides for control of the feline population but does not indicate effective implementation. In the end, the feline population is not regulated.”¹⁷⁸

Interestingly, the NGO World Animal Protection gives Switzerland an overall grade of “A,” the highest possible ranking on a scale of A to G, for its protection of animals, and in particular, the group writes that “the legal provisions relating to companion animals are detailed and wide-reaching in their scope.”¹⁷⁹ It continues: “However, the law does not currently contain provisions on humane companion animal population control” and “there appear to be resource and socio-cultural barriers to introducing humane population control methods for cats.”¹⁸⁰ It reports, further, that a 2013 petition to ban the hunting of feral cats was rejected in Parliament, and that Doris Leuthard, then the Head of the Federal Department of Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications, argued that the proposed ban would be too expensive and difficult to implement (through trapping and sterilization), and would impinge on the sovereignty of the cantons.¹⁸¹ Leuthard also argued that stray cats were not a major problem in Switzerland,¹⁸² a position clearly at odds with the abovementioned argument by the petitioners that it is a problem and it is not regulated. World Animal Protection underscores the aspect of cantonal sovereignty as a potential “structural barrier” to improving animal welfare.¹⁸³ The barriers to humane population control measures for cats in particular will be revisited in section 5.

Section 4. TNR in Switzerland

“The sight of feral cats is heartbreaking…Those who think that this exists only in the global south are mistaken. In Switzerland, too, one of the richest countries in the world, the number of stray cats is estimated

at more than 100,000 “.”¹⁸⁴

“Castration means fighting the causes, not the symptoms!”¹⁸⁵

The research for this article found no analytical or scientific articles on TNR in Switzerland. That factor shaped the current section in two ways. First, what follows is not a quantitative account of the results of TNR operations in the country; rather, it is a qualitative discussion of these operations. Second, the narrative for this section had to be pieced together from public materials of NGOs, press coverage and key informant interviews. It begins by laying out the landscape of TNR in Switzerland: when it emerged, how it is carried out and by whom. Due to research limitations, the picture provided is not based on a comprehensive canvassing of TNR in a representative sampling of cantons; as an overview, therefore, it will necessarily contain certain generalizations. The second part of the section explores some of the strengths, or promising aspects, of TNR as it is practiced in Switzerland, based primarily on the interviews. That discussion will lead into the final section, which delves into certain important challenges to TNR in Switzerland, bringing in lessons from elsewhere in the world that might be helpful in addressing these.

4.1The Landscape

Given the paucity of literature on TNR in Switzerland, it is difficult to say with certainty how long it has been carried out. Interviews with key informants revealed that individuals have been undertaking TNR on their own, without organizational support, for decades, in some cases since the 1970s and 80s. Over the past 20 to 25 years, what has evolved is a system in which TNR is conducted almost (if not) entirely by private, not-for-profit entities and private citizens all over the country, with the PSA and its sections playing an important role along with many other animal welfare NGOs, as well as an unknown number of individual volunteers.

Turning first to the PSA’s role: formal organizational backing for TNR seems to have started in 1996, when the PSA began providing annual financial contributions to its sections in Switzerland (and Liechtenstein) to undertake campaigns to spay and neuter unowned and feral cats, including those living near farms, in particular.¹⁸⁶ The PSA now contributes between 300,000 and 400,000 Swiss francs (CHF) per year to its sections, some of which are also animal shelters; by the PSA’s estimates, the sections themselves provide about the same amount, in their own funds, toward these efforts.¹⁸⁷ The organization reports that these castration campaigns, which do not receive public sector funding, have resulted in the trapping, neutering, veterinary treatment and releasing of over 180,000 cats in total since the PSA began to support the operations.¹⁸⁸

Interviews with a number of PSA sections turned up different methods through which they carry out TNR. In some instances, the section completely “outsources” the work, lending traps to individuals who capture the cats, bring them for neutering to a veterinarian with whom the section has a partnership, and collect the cats afterward for release (ideally) to where they were found. In other cases, the section’s own staff or trained volunteers may carry out the trapping and returning of the cats after they are neutered, or may share this work with residents who provide care to community cats. In one canton, a PSA section has an “official volunteer” who spearheads the organization’s TNR work, which involves trapping cats on her own, getting them to the vet and returning them to the field, as well as organizing resident cat caregivers all over the region to participate in the campaigns. After the surgery, regional PSA sections monitor the cat colonies “in order to be able to sterilize any new arrivals in the area in question.”¹⁸⁹ The PSA also depends on private citizens’ signaling community cats to its sections, and its website provides an online form for people to do so.¹⁹⁰

With regard to government participation, the level of local, or commune-level, involvement in or support for these operations is unknown.¹⁹¹ One key informant who has decades of experience carrying out TNR in multiple cantons said she did not know of any cantons that provide funding for TNR; it is possible that some do, but this information is not made available by the government.¹⁹² Scattered evidence was found of communes helping to pay for TNR operations, such as a commune in the canton of Ticino that co-financed a weeklong TNR campaign carried out by two NGOs,¹⁹³ and communes that sometimes agree – upon request from an NGO – to participate in funding a TNR operation.¹⁹⁴ Other exceptions found in the research, which will be discussed later in the section, involve a canton’s financing a discreet part of TNR (though not the surgery), and local authorities’ granting formal permission for non-profit groups to conduct the TNR, as opposed to governmental bodies being involved operationally.

Echoing a point made in the previous section, one key informant pointed to major differences in how animal welfare law is enforced from canton to canton. She noted that some cantonal veterinarians (who are state-appointed officials) are more supportive of TNR than are others; in particular, the cantonal veterinarian of Graubunden has put out a brochure informing each commune of how to handle feral cats, and urging them — S. 76 —to trap and neuter the animals. But this canton is, to her knowledge, the only one that does this. In some cantons, her organization must ask the police for permission every time it wants to carry out a castration campaign.¹⁹⁵

Financial arrangements for spay and neuter surgery also vary across PSA’s sections. To give an idea of the different arrangements: in one case, the section has enough funding that it actually subsidizes smaller organizations to do TNR; it also provides individuals with vouchers (“bons”) to discount the cost of surgery for feral cats that they trap. In another instance, the surgery cost is divided between the section (which in turn receives some TNR funding from the PSA), partner veterinarians and a remaining fraction that must be recouped somehow, through contributions from the villager who traps the cat, or some other source. In yet another permutation, the SPA section splits the cost of the surgery with another NGO that is not a member of the PSA, and thus individuals trapping cats in their neighborhood do not have to pay anything. An important element is a section’s having an agreement with private veterinarians who conduct the surgery at a discounted rate; all of the PSA sections interviewed mentioned having this kind of arrangement.

The PSA states that its surveys of its 71 sections in 2014 and 2017 showed that the stray cat population in Switzerland had “remained stable thanks to the PSA’s program.”¹⁹⁶ The organization also claims that, through these efforts, it has been possible “to eradicate in large part the epidemics that were spreading” before these operations began.¹⁹⁷ As noted, the research did not turn up any publicly available scientific or statistical studies of TNR in Switzerland, either on the PSA’s programs or those of other groups, so it is not possible to verify these assertions. The PSA did undertake a study in 2013 of castration campaigns by its sections, but the study remains internal and was not shared upon request.

Outside of the PSA and its sections, a number of other animal welfare organizations of varying sizes carry out TNR as well, with the crucial involvement of both volunteers, who are generally private citizens who provide assistance with castration campaigns and follow-up monitoring, and private veterinarians who spay and neuter the cats for a discounted fee. Just three of these organizations will be highlighted briefly here. One of the most well-known for its TNR work is NetAP, introduced earlier. The organization’s main focus is on the welfare of farm and street animals. Its activities include spay and neuter missions in Switzerland and abroad, disaster relief and emergency aid, support for animal shelters, training veterinarians for global animal welfare missions, addressing long and illegal transports of animals for slaughter, and reporting animal rights infringements.¹⁹⁸ NetAP trains volunteers to carry out the TNR work in Switzerland. It has contracts with about 30 veterinary clinics to do the surgery at a discount, and undertakes “Spay Days” in communes around the country. For the latter, NetAP sets up “field hospitals” near to where local volunteers trap feral cats – this can be at a town hall, a sports center, a factory, or whatever other space is available – where multiple veterinarians, volunteering their time, can operate on up to 100 cats in a weekend. These operations allow for the efficient and professional spaying and neutering of a high volume of cats.¹⁹⁹ NetAP covers the cost of TNR for unowned cats; if the cats are on or near a farm, the organization asks the farmer for a small contribution²⁰⁰ (this is similar to other groups interviewed).

The Susy Utzinger Animal Welfare Foundation (or Susy Utzinger Stiftung für Tierschutz, hereafter, SUST) is another not-for-profit with significant involvement in TNR in Switzerland. With a focus on the root causes of animal suffering, the foundation’s four main pillars are improving the quality of animal shelters, neutering campaigns, education of specialists and education of the public on animal welfare. It supports neutering campaigns both abroad and locally. Its support of TNR in Switzerland involves collaborating with smaller organizations, private citizens, shelters and about 40 veterinarians carrying out TNR for cat colonies; lending out traps; covering the costs of spay and neuter surgery as well as food for neutered cat colonies; and training personnel for spay and neuter campaigns.²⁰¹ The foundation, whose work is financed by private donations and legacies, also partners with SPA sections on TNR, and has a program in Switzerland to provide — S. 77 —free spaying and neutering for animals of low-income pet owners.²⁰² The organization reports that in 2016, it “was able to organize and finance over 400 cat neuterings in cooperation with experienced Swiss veterinarians.”²⁰³

In addition, the international animal welfare NGO, Four Paws, has global programs to neuter unowned dogs and cats. Its Swiss chapter, Vier Pfoten, or Quatre Pattes, has a program to encourage the spaying and neutering of community cats in Switzerland. Quatre Pattes carries out TNR campaigns in communes throughout the country in collaboration with other organizations. Interestingly, one of the cat colonies that Quatre Pattes has managed is at a prison in the canton of Fribourg. The group has conducted ongoing TNR actions at the prison, monitoring and then trapping and neutering any new arrivals. The cats are cared for by prisoners and prison staff.²⁰⁴ While Quatre Pattes organizes the TNR and lends the equipment, the prison covers the medical costs. At Quatre Pattes’ initiative, the prisoners have built shelters, or “hotels”, for the cats. According to a farm manager quoted in the organization’s press release on the initiative, the structures not only benefit the cats; they also advance the goal of reintegration of prisoners, as their participation “has a resocializing effect by kindling their interest in animals.”²⁰⁵

In fact, one could argue that an informal TNR network exists in Switzerland, at least among several of the major groups working in this area. For example, NetAP cooperates with local organizations to carry out TNR of feral cat hot spots. It also has a contract of cooperation with the PSA in which the latter’s sections inform NetAP of feral cat hot spots; the PSA sections then trap the cats, NetAP organizes their treatment and castration at a “field hospital”, and the PSA provides a certain amount of funding per cat spayed or neutered.²⁰⁶ Several other key informants also pointed to working relationships they have with other groups doing TNR, in which they coordinate and split up geographical areas for castration campaigns. Only the outlines of this network emerged in the research; future investigation could perhaps provide a more concrete rendering of its contours and functioning. Besides the main groups described above, there is also an unknown number of smaller not-for-profits that conduct TNR.²⁰⁷

TNR operations in Switzerland are predicated not just on the need to keep the community cat population in check, but also on the need to address the sometimes cruel treatment of these animals. The PSA’s TNR program is dubbed “Action against cat misery,”²⁰⁸ and the banner on the landing page of this program calls castration of stray and feral cats “the most animal-friendly method to prevent unwanted offspring (castrate instead of kill!)”²⁰⁹ Some of the key informants from animal welfare organizations told of receiving calls from residents threatening to poison feral cats or have them shot by hunters if their organization did not take the cats immediately.

In a related vein, a NetAP publication notes that the estimated cat population of Switzerland has been constant for years, but it argues that, given that only about 20,000 feral and abandoned cats annually are spayed and neutered through TNR by PSA’s sections, NetAP and others, a conservative estimate is that the feral and unowned cat population in Switzerland is “regulated by killings” of as many as 100,000 cats per year.²¹⁰ This number is not verifiable here, but based on NGO public materials, press coverage and key informant interviews, it is clear that community cats are still killed cruelly throughout the country, including by poisoning or being shot by hunters or farmers. These killings can be due to an individual’s resistance to spending money on castrating feral cats or cats that live near farms, or a perception that feral cats are simply a nuisance to be done away with, a view that is arguably reinforced by the hunting law allowing the shooting of feral cats.

NetAP points out that such killings are unlawful in Switzerland, because although the Animal Welfare Act allows the killing of an animal, it must be done painlessly, and while euthanasia would fulfill this requirement, the Code of Ethics of the Swiss Society of Veterinarians “prohibits the killing of healthy — S. 78 —animals.”²¹¹ It is in this context that NetAP and others have proposed “sustainable measures to avoid these unnecessary killings”, including mandatory castration of outdoor (owned) cats, mandatory registration of cats so as to provide clear data on, and better control of, the cat population in Switzerland, and “banning the killing of cats for reasons of population control”.²¹² In this way, TNR is just one part, though a crucial one, of these groups’ approach to feral cat management.

4.2Strengths and Innovations of TNR in Switzerland

TNR in Switzerland is marked by a number of strengths as well as promising or even innovative features. In terms of general strengths, as the previous section has outlined, there is coordination and cooperation among several organizations working on TNR and, in some cases, an explicit division of labor between groups. Examples were found of programs that have the capacity to carry out professional (i.e. veterinary) spaying and neutering of feral cats at a relatively high volume, such as NetAP’s field hospitals, or the castration campaigns that several organizations conduct in communes or on farms. Importantly, practitioners in Switzerland seem well aware of the complexity of TNR, and of the need, as underscored in the theoretical and practical literature from multiple countries, to work on several levels at once: legal change and enforcement, policy advocacy, education and changing human behavior, adoption of socializable animals, support for shelters, and registration and identification of cats.

A further strength is that the sections of the PSA receive, from the national entity, a certain level of stable, if partial, funding for TNR each year, and many veterinary clinics and practices provide spay and neuter surgery for TNR programs of both the PSA sections and other organizations at a discounted rate. TNR in Switzerland also benefits from the collaboration of many volunteer cat care-givers in communities throughout the country (see box below for one example).

The Centrality of Volunteers

Manuela Roux is the “Official Volunteer” (“bénévole officielle”) of SPA Valais, a section of the PSA that operates in the central and upper parts of the alpine canton of Valais. Her modest title belies the complexity of her function and the level of engagement she must maintain to carry out TNR. In addition to doing some of the trapping herself (in 2018, she trapped 290 cats: 200 adults for neutering and 90 kittens for socialization and adoption), bringing the cats to various veterinarians for neutering, returning the animals to the field after a night of recuperation at her home, and keeping detailed records of each cat neutered, she works closely with an informal network of residents – themselves also working in a voluntary capacity – in villages throughout her region to ensure that they notify her when cats enter the traps, as well as reporting new (non-neutered) cats in their neighborhoods and monitoring and feeding neutered cats after they are returned to the community. Mrs. Roux also engages individually with village authorities and police, sharing information with them extensively to ensure that they will permit the TNR to take place; works to persuade those who oppose the castration campaigns; and finds the financing (whether from residents or communes) to cover the part of funding for spaying and neutering costs not covered by the SPA section and the veterinarians. In addition to her TNR work, she also provides aid to injured cats in the region.²¹³

In their reliance on volunteers – primarily local residents who care deeply about the welfare of community cats – Swiss NGOs that carry out or organize TNR are similar to their counterparts in other countries. For example, NetAP notes that volunteers, and “the voluntary work of veterinarians,” are a “central pillar” of its TNR work.²¹⁴ The indispensability of volunteers to TNR is a reality wherever the method is practiced, and is confirmed in many studies on TNR worldwide. Hamilton writes, for example, that “it takes everyone in the community, both volunteers and professionals, to solve the companion animal problem.”²¹⁵ The Humane Society of the United States asserts that “large-scale sterilization programs depend on volunteer — S. 79 —support”, and notes that researchers have found that “a significant portion of the public (approximately 10% to 12%) already feeds community cats.”²¹⁶

The unpaid work and unquestioned commitment of volunteers represent a strength of TNR: for example, they are present in the communities in a way that paid organization staff could not match, and their integral involvement in TNR is arguably a key factor in long-term, local “ownership” of the issue of community cat management. The reliance on volunteers could also be a potential weakness for TNR, in Switzerland and elsewhere, as it raises questions about sustainability, at least for individual operations. The next section will return to this issue, as well as one idea for a way forward.

Outside of the general strengths of TNR as practiced in Switzerland, the work of various organizations to manage community cats presents promising and sometimes innovative features. Just three of these will be highlighted here. Each has to do with TNR organizations’ outreach to, or engagement of, different subsets of the population: farmers; local authorities, and the government and general public.