The numbers behind the new “study” showing “comprehensive TNR would cost about $2 billion less than eradication” for local municipalities simply don’t add up. Literally. Advocates for TNR should not use this study puff piece to bolster their position lest they discredit the entire movement for using questionable data to manufacture a benefit that is not supported by real data and uses bogus accounting.
The most obvious error is the failure to account for $ 874,952,500 in savings, which is a full half of the savings the report claims TNR provides.
The report lists 4 cost factors: trap/enforcement, neuter/spay, physical exams, and vaccinations. The cost summation for these four elements is $14,874,192,500; but the report erroneously lists this as $13,999,240,000 which is nearly $875 million underreported.
There is no excuse for such a blatant error.
Now, before you get the mistaken impression that the cost figures in this study are highly accurate because of the many non-zero digits, the authors of the report are disguising how much rounding they have done by not obeying the convention of significant figures. The budget numbers show superfluous precision. The numbers reported imply a specificity of measurement that is much higher than the actual data gives. You might assume that this error is introduced by multiplying a very specific cost per cat (say $148.74) by a very large but imprecise number of cats (say 100,000,000). This is not the case. The creator of this report is using a very imprecise number for the cost per cat ($180) multiplied by an overly precise number for the feral cat population (87,495,250). It’s unlikely that such a number can be estimated to within a million cats, let alone tens of cats as the report suggests.
So, let’s look at the data in a way that’s easier to comprehend. Here, I simply divided the listed costs by the listed number of feral cats, and behold: the costs per cat are all perfectly even numbers rounded to the nearest $10! This is not the work of a scientist or a statistician or even an accountant. The cost per cat for these various procedures is the one bit of data in this study that could reasonably be estimated down to the penny from empirical data. Yet it’s not. This is sloppy math and reeks of a PR firm hired to cook up some data instead of a legit study that was commissioned by a neutral and independent source aimed at doing real analysis.
This isn’t a real study as it relies on no original research and fails to cite the most important numerical assumptions used in the formulation of its conclusion, specifically the per cat costs of the options listed, e.g. vaccinations, physical examinations, etc. This would be the raison d’etre of such a study if it were authentic: to compare costs. Instead, this report throws in useless citations that don’t actually provide useful data. The one citation that portends to corroborate the $15.7 billion calculation points to the HSUS website with a note that they estimate the cost of animal control at over $18.7 billion. Not only could I not find this data at the site given, we are given no reason to believe that this HSUS number (which is the size of the NASA budget or the yearly profits of Chevron) speaks to the same costs that are listed in this report.
And let’s look at the numbers given in the report. Do they even pass the sniff test? NO!
The estimate of the number of feral cats is suspicious and unsourced. This report lists 87.5 million but does not provide any real details on the calculation, just a lot of mumbo-jumo that was obviously stolen from another report. For instance, why would the number of feral cats be dependent on the “unemployment rate” and if these costs are so carefully adjusted for regional variations why are such crude estimates used? The HSUS which is sited as a source estimates “as many as 50 million feral cats in the United States,” which is a far cry from 87.5 million. Since this report is focusing on the difference in total cost and not the much more modest difference in per cat cost, the motive here is clear: make the difference number as large as possible by reporting as many feral cats as possible.
There’s also no reason to find the total number of feral cats in the United States in such a complicated matter if the goal of the study is to do a cost comparison between three alternatives and you’re using the exact same price values for every cat in the country. Any policy maker can choose which option on the cost per cat basis. Saying $170 per cat versus $180 per cat just isn’t as sexy as “nearly TWO BILLION in savings!” (well nearly $875 million, but who is counting anyway?).
Let’s look at the per cat costs that this report implies. We have the trap cost of $50 per cat; since this is common among all the plans, we can ignore it for any error here effects all plans equally.
Next, we have a sheltering cost of $40 per cat, a food cost of $40 and laboratory costs of $10. Why are we sheltering, feeding and testing cats that that are to be euthanized? The report states that these costs are mandated in many states, yet there are no sheltering or feeding or laboratory costs worked into the TNR numbers.
These numbers are based on the inane assumption that euthanizing every feral cat will require treating every single one of them as a stray, and TNRing every cat will treat none of them as stray.
Equally preposterous is the cost basis of eradication/euthanization vs. the neuter/spay procedure. Both are estimated to cost $40 per cat. This is preposterous. There is not a veterinarian on the planet who could perform a spay/neuter operation for the same cost as a euthanasia. A spay is a delicate surgery requiring expensive and specialized equipment, one time use materials, and a surgeon’s skill. Even a layperson can perform a successful euthanasia with a modicum of training.
Dr. Khuly charges the following retail prices to euthanize a dog at her Florida vet practice:
Catheter: $25
IV Sedation: $20
IV Euthanasia solution: $20
Not only is this the deluxe treatment with catheter and sedation, it’s also the price for a dog. In the comments, numerous people affirmed that the cost to euthanize a cat was significantly less than the cost for a dog given their smaller size. The lowest prices quoted in the comments were $10 and $16 to euthanize a cat.
She also estimates that vets charge between $75 and $350 to desex a cat (again, much less than the cost for a dog):
Cat spays are priced more uniformly, since there’s not a big divide between the smallest and largest patients. Most are spayed quite young, too, which helps support this uniformity: $75 to $350 is typical. Cat neuters adhere to an even smaller range: $50 to $150, typically.
So it’s clear that in the retail market the cost to desex a cat is significantly more than euthanasia, perhaps twice or three times the cost.
If we are really committed to euthanizing feral cat colonies instead of running them all through our shelters like lost pets, there are humane methods that can be accomplished in the field for much less than $1 per cat with no need for expensive poisons or a specially trained veterinarian or food costs or boarding costs or any of that.
The most preposterous element of this report is the “supported” package TNR cost, at just $30 per animal. This figure supposedly relies on the assumption that all the rest of the costs will be donated. This assumes $7.8 Billion in charity. That’s the entire peace keeping budget of the UN, that’s how much money the US Postal Service is projected to lose in 2010, and it’s also how much money Freddie Mac and CitiGroup lost in the fourth quarter of last year, and it’s the total estimated damage of the earthquake in Haiti. There is not $7.8 Billion in charity waiting for spay/neuter programs and there never will be.
There are between 40,000 and 50,000 veterinarians in the USA. If every single one of them donated their time to spay and neuter cats, and the average procedure takes 20 minutes, and they all worked non-stop 8 hours, five days a week, it would take over 4 months to complete all the surgeries. Good luck with that!
I’ve written kind words about TNR, No Kill, and Nathan Winograd in the past and I’m certainly willing to accept a major rethink in policy when the numbers work out. Advocates of No-Kill do themselves no favor by using this study to bolster their cause. Heralding such a dubious paid-to-order pseudo study as gospel in favor of No Kill opens up the entire movement to criticism and calls into question all the potential benefits of No Kill and TNR by tainting them with bogus puffery.
It’s a shame that Maddie’s Fund hired a firm to create an interactive fund raising portal instead of commissioning a legitimate study that would have illuminated the situation with good data.
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I haven’t looked at this study yet but you’ve certainly piqued my interest! I will look it over later on today.
It reads like someone here is doing dome factoring to squeeze a bonus out of nothing and fatten their pockets.
I think we should call this study the “Catron study.”
Because just like Enron, it uses creative accounting practices.
.-= retrieverman´s last blog ..Golden retrievers kill pikachu =-.
Funny you should mention Enron, because $7.8 billion — the budget pitfall for package TNR — is the entire amount of the settlement former shareholders won against Enron.
I’ve been trying to make sense of this paper as well. Thanks for this post, it goes way more in depth than the paper did, and at least you offer some actual numbers taken from reality.
I’m sure they could have gotten different numbers for a lot of different reasons (vets often volunteer their time, making many TNR spays free, for example). But how are we to know? There’s too many assumptions and too little data.
I’m a supporter of TNR (in general), and I couldn’t agree more with your last paragraph.
.-= cyborgsuzy´s last blog ..Hummers =-.
I will keep this simple.
Fact: My municipality would allocate somewhere in the range of $50,000 to $80,000 dollars a year of tax payer money to use euthanasia as the method of feral cat control
Fact: Volunteers started and have been successfully running a TNR program since its launch.
Fact: The municipality has allocated $0 dollars of tax payers money towards any method of feral cat control.
the TNR group funds everything… Oh but lets sit and argue about the numbers concerning donations because that is an excellent use of time. Hmmm ohhh, a thought: people like doing charitable work, people like donating to causes, people LIKE HAVING A CAUSE that gives their life more meaning and definition other than their profession and socio economic status.
Based on that, thank you for the offer to read a complicated study on cost comparison yaddy, considering the results are rendered irrelevant due to there findings being moot when the cost of TNR is 9 out of 10 time funded trough charity work these groups raise personally. The cost to anyone who do not support TNRs method is effectively Zero. closing equation
feral cat management method administered through municipalities = tax payer expenditures
Feral cat management method arranged funded and implemented by a group that take solace in a cause that stops the killing of animals (killing animals being a issue most people tend to think is not so nice) = $0 dollars of tax payers expenditures.
i have a question, why would anyone put effort into arguing against a successful solution to a problem that happens to result in no mandated money loss for anyone???
* Volunteer efforts, by their definition, cost the state nothing. There’s no reason to hire a puff piece “study” to illuminate this fact.
– If this is your position, I can sum up the situation thus: “Municipalities can save 100% of the current budget for animal control by outsourcing it all to volunteer groups.
* This “study” purports to demonstrate a gigantic savings to municipalities that would actually be paying for these services. This study presents a budget that would be expected to be fulfilled by tax payers, this it should be given due diligence.
* Are you saying that meaning well is sufficient to make such a plan immune to auditing? Because we like something or agree with something, should we then surrender our critical thinking skills and become apologists for its failures and evangelists for unsupportable benefits?
* This study doesn’t purport to analyse the psychology of volunteering. It’s nice people have a cause, that doesn’t show up on the balance sheet, so it’s neither here nor there as far as the bogus number presented here are concerned. This study is pushing the bottom line, not intangible warm fuzzies.
* This is NOT a complicated study. At all. As my analysis showed, they round EVERYTHING off to $10 and multiply by an overly specific number of feral cats to make the numbers look like they are highly specific, when they clearly are not.
* The majority has no problem with killing animals, especially nuisance animals. The purpose of this study, again, was about “look at how much money we save simply by performing surgeries instead of euthanasias.” The moral issue is again, not a part of this study and applies just the same if TNR is more or less expensive than alternatives.
* As I said in my piece:
– Using bogus data and paid for puff analysis opens the cause and the movement up to criticism for very little benefit. Why should skeptics and the undecided trust the TNR message as a whole when bogus studies like this are used? Little lie, big lie; lost credibility; and a single talking point that can be used to bash down every beneficial claim TNR can make when trying to win public favor.
* Saving the movement from doing more harm than good (for itself) is a virtue. It’s cowardly, disingenuous, and dishonest to accept such trash science from a cause you believe in when you’d throw a fit if such rubbish was used to support a position you disagreed with.
Thank you.
I’ve long been suspicious of “No Kill” as a one-piece solution to feral pet populations, and this TNR marshmallow has been tossed at me like a grenade to show what a bad person I am for my doubts. I was reasonably sure there were big flaws in it, but didn’t know which string to pull to make it unravel.
Nothing against ‘No-Kill and TNR,’ if a locale can find a way to make it work – financially and logistically, but as a blanket solution? Don’t think so.
You seem to have missed the most important aspect of all in the deceptive math that TNR advocates use. Cats’ breeding rates far far far outgrow any trapping method available on earth.
Here’s a fun read to PROVE how effective TNR programs are and how they con and deceive simpletons like you. Alley-Cat-ALL-LIES can’t even reduce the number of cats in their own city, yet they promote it as a worldwide solution. Then even bigger fools fall for their transparent con-job.
“In NYC there are currently 465 registered TNR colonies. When TNR began in these colonies, 6047 cats were present – today, there are 4523 cats present, a decline of approximately 25 percent.” (Quoted direct from an Alley Cat ALL-LIES member who was SO proud of this.)
Of those 6,047 cats they’ve only REDUCED the total by 1,524 cats, about 127 PER YEAR. That’s only 0.08% of the 1,806,310 feral-cats within the city’s limits. (data taken direct from TNR-advocates’ own resources) Apparently, if you TNR 4 cats and 3 die from being flattened by cars this is a 75% decline of feral-cats everywhere according to the way Alley-Cat-ALL-LIES members think.
Guess how many have been born IN JUST THE LAST 6 MONTHS (hoping like hell that they’re not breeding every 4 months). Let’s do the math…
(1/2 total = females) 903,155 X 5 (avg. number in a litter) = 4,515,775 NEW CATS. Which lowers the number of them that have been reduced by TNR idiots to only 0.024%. THEY ARE GOING BACKWARD.
Guess how many will be born in another 6 months? (4,515,775 / 2) X 5 = 11,289,438.
Remember. the first 903,155 females are still breeding. For another 4,515,775. Add in the pre-existing 1,806,310, bringing the grand total in just ONE YEAR to 17,611,523 CATS. NEARLY EIGHTEEN MILLION. Which means that TNR groups have only reduced the cat-population by 0.008% of them. That’s not even ONE ONE-HUNDREDTH of ONE-PERCENT.
1,806,310 cats become nearly EIGHTEEN MILLION CATS … IN JUST *ONE* YEAR. Keep in mind too, these are the numbers in JUST ONE CITY. They would have to trap approximately 48,250 cats PER DAY just to match how many are being born PER DAY. At an average cost of community resources which must be diverted (conned out of others actually) at $170 per cat for a cost of $8,202,500.00 PER DAY, a cost that must be sustained INTO PERPETUITY if they cannot trap them faster than this.
Catching on yet to how TNR people are just spinning wheels in the sand while sliding backward off the mountain and accomplishing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING?
Well, they are managing to torture cats and torture or starve-to-death all native wildlife, annihilating the whole native food-chain with an INVASIVE-SPECIES, and spreading deadly or lifelong illnesses to all manner of animals and even humans while doing all this. I guess that’s accomplishing something. Including their cats even spreading the plague today. (Google for that fun aspect if you don’t believe me. No rats nor fleas even required, cats carry and spread the plague all on their own. People have already died from cat-transmitted plague in the USA.) So much for that oft spewed urban myth that cats would have saved everyone from the plague in Europe. If the cats infect the rodents with Toxoplasma gondii, then cats even attract the plague right to your door since the toxo-infected rodents are now attracted to cat-urine. Cats would have only made the plague even more intensive and an even larger disaster. As they will this time around.
[Note: this recursive calculation population-growth problem actually requires advanced calculus with many more variables and will result in differing numbers; some higher, some lower, depending on how many years you do the population-growth projection when using both methods; but the results are just as astoundingly large no matter which method you use. I only include the dumbed-down version here so those cat-lovers with at least half a brain left can comprehend and do the math yourself. Besides, it doesn’t matter how many feral-cats are roaming free. If even ONE invasive-species cat is roaming free and has destroyed even ONE native animal, then that invasive-species cat must be destroyed. These numbers are only important to alert all others to how many cats must be destroyed and if they’ll ever have the financial resources to do so by using their preferred method. In most cases, every municipality must allocate anywhere from 1/10th to 1/2 $BILLION PER YEAR if employing TNR costs just to catch-up to their breeding rates — sustaining that expense YEARLY into perpetuity. Whereas shooting them results in costs substantially lower, in the range of $2,000 to $75,000 for 1 year. Which ends up being a ONE-TIME-EXPENSE. Something that is attainable by the tax-base in most every area.]
I’m not disputing you but I’m honestly curious to know more about people who have died from cat-transmitted plague in the USA. The idea that it does not even require fleas especially intrigues me.
In NYC, there are loads of cats, not to mention pigeons, and we always hear oeople speak of these animals, esp pigeons, as being harbingers of disease. Not saying it isn’t POSSIBLE but given that in my 42 years and my mom’s 70, no one we ever run into has ever heard of or known of, anyone getting sick and having it proven to be cat, or pigeon, related, the whole scare seems exxagerated. Not impossible, just exxagerated.
Having said all of that, I was never a fan of TNR, not because I see the cats as a nuisance or a source of contagion to be feared and reviled, but rather that it’s simply inhumane.
TNR is another example of life at all costs. Sure, vaccinate them, but FIP, FIV, distemper are a handful of things that can affect stray cats. There are fight injuries from other cats, dogs or wildlife ( the various wild species aren’t all the victims you know – raccoons, foxes and skunks are serious competitors), cars, internal and external parasites, infections, starvation ( all the feeding stations in the world don’t guarantee a thing for all these cats), and other things to contend with. Ferals are known to live short, miserable lives in general. What is so great about intefering with a humane end to that?
Cat-Transmitted FATAL PNEUMONIC PLAGUE:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8059908
And a few more for “fun”:
http://www.pagosasun.com/archives/2011/07July/072811/webplague.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/oregon-man-suffering-plague-critical-condition-article-1.1094782
http://www.daily-times.com/ci_20849462/health-department-said-taos-cat-has-plague
Totally disproving that oft-spewed myth that cat-lovers relentless spread, about cats in Europe could have prevented the plague. No rats nor fleas even required. Cats themselves carry and transmit the plague all on their own.
Any organism which can become infected by the bacterium which causes plague (manifested in any or all 3 forms; septicemic, bubonic, or pneumonic; all one in the same disease), can retransmit this disease. The spread of the plague in Europe was spread so far and so fast from human to human. Once a human has contracted it from an infected animal or flea, the animal or flea is of no longer any importance. Also true if cats contract this, they can go on to spread it to other animals, other cats, and humans. Since all domesticated-cats (stray and feral) have a genetic predisposition to seek out human habitation … this does not bode well for anyone nor anything.
The exponential breeding models are unsupportable by any observed evidence. Cats are neither bacteria in a medium of infinite resources nor Tribbles on a star ship. Your numbers are nonsense on their face. We do not see 10x the number of cats year over year, this is absurd. There are no more 100 times as many cats on the streets as 2 years ago than there are 100 times as many 3 years ago and 1,000 times as many 4 years ago.
If we played this game using your unsupportable theoretical math, then one pregnant female cat that weighted 10 pounds when I was born would today have so many offspring that they would weigh more than the entire planet, and the planet weighs 13,200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 lbs.
Your attempt at math is as bogus as the accounting in this TNR press release.
You can graciously and gratefully thank all your ecologically responsible neighbors who are silently and efficiently making all your lousy invasive species cats permanently disappear for you – by any means possible. Inexpensive generic Acetaminophen/Paracetamol pain-relievers (1 adult-strength is more than enough) are exploding in popularity to get rid of your excess cats for you for being so species specific. Though to be perfectly correct, a clean kill with a gun is best. (Legal everywhere in the USA. Shoot to maim inhumane and illegal. Shoot to kill is perfectly humane and perfectly legal. The very same laws that apply to legally hunting animals humanely also applies to destroying vermin pest cats. Contrary to psychotic cat-lovers, their cat is just another animal. It is NOT their baby, their child, their offspring.)
This is why the market for the new air-rifles with sound-suppressor designs is making a financial killing as well (pun intended). They are being specifically designed to shoot cats in no-firearms zones. An excellent investment for any urban household because cat-lovers NEVER stop releasing their invasive-species cats where they don’t belong. You’ll have a use for that gun for years to come. And quite the savings when you realize how many valuable hours of your life you wasted arguing with idiots like this Christopher.
Shooting cleanly is best (as opposed to using acetaminophen pain-relievers in cat-foods) because you really should do this in a manner where you can retrieve that carcass and dispose of it safely and sanitarily so that all the deadly diseases stray cats carry today don’t go on to kill our valuable native wildlife even after they are dead. Leaving ANY cat out in nature, alive OR dead, is no better than poisoning your native wildlife to death today. I tried feeding a shot-dead cat to some local wildlife that was under my care, those animals promptly died from eating that cat-meat. Sad, to say the least.
SSS — Shoot, Shovel, & Shut-Up
TDSS — Trap, Drown, Shovel, & Shut-Up
Those are your two very best friends when living next-door to a cat lover. Legal on every square foot of this earth. No local laws were violated if it never happened! Many a raccoon, dog, car, coyote, hawk, cat-napper, etc, was blamed for a neighbor’s missing cat that is now acting as fertilizer for rose-bushes. 🙂
Good luck! 🙂
You’re a hoot. You save up all these anti-TNR screeds, as if any of the arguments you seem to be replying to have been made here, and then you spread insults instead of making logical and factual arguments.
This is my blog and you’ll show me due respect to actually read what I wrote and respond in an adult manner.
If you want the privilege of posting comments on my dime you’ll have to do better than the lazy, stupid, and rude ramblings you’ve shit out so far.
(oops, sorry for the “simpletons like you” comment, this was some prepared text I post to TNR fools online, missed editing out that line. Sorry! 🙂 If you can edit that out, feel free to do so.)
Thanks for putting this post back in, I wasn’t wrong for editing that out.
Your copypasta is old and moldy.
So instead of actually talking to people, you just robotically copy-past long tirades that have nothing to do with anything anyone has actually said?
Boring, and pretty rude.
Oh my glob, I think I finally understand why I should care about significant digits.
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