Population control

An often-overlooked population in any given city is the stray cats found on the porches of the very homes that dot the community’s landscape. 

Though not apparent to all, the cats seen darting between the shadowed backyards and cars of neighborhoods serve a great purpose, and Sandra Estes of Sandy’s Feral-Fun plays a vital role in managing them.

Sandy’s Feral-Fun is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) trap-neuter-release program located in Tom Bean (with a Whitewright mailing address), focused on managing and protecting community cats in Grayson County and surrounding areas. The organization helps stabilize feral cat populations that serve as natural pest control against rodents and snakes without the use of dangerous pesticides. 

Founded by Estes nearly 11 years ago, owning a rescue of her own wasn’t ever necessarily on her radar until after the devastating passing of her son in 2014 when the passion fell into her lap. 

“I was driving home one day from picking up my grandson, and there was a voice that said, ‘I have a job for you,’” Estes said. “And the next thing you know, I had traps, and I started trapping. I’d never trapped a thing in my life, and it just grew from there. What started out as me thinking I was saving cats was them saving me. And now I’m returning the favor.” 

Prior to establishing Sandy’s Feral-Fun full-time, Estes worked for nearly three decades as a diagnostic medical sonographer with the Department of Veterans Affairs. As she approached retirement, she simultaneously laid the foundation for what would soon become her full-time work.

“In my first year, I sterilized 19 cats,” Estes said. “Then the following year, I think it was closer to 100. It just kept snowballing upwards. This year alone, I’ve done 1,376 cats.”

Now working with a veterinarian to manage neutering community cats, the start of the rescue was Estes trapping strays herself and paying for their veterinary care out of her own pocket before offering the service publicly.

“A job implies that you get paid, and I do not make a salary. It’s a mission,” Estes said. “I started out in my home out of a side room, and now I have a massive barn that’s a private rescue housing almost 60 animals. So I went from being medically inclined with humans to being medically inclined with cats. It really was a very easy transition, but I just don’t get paid for this mission.”

While her program began as a personal endeavor, Estes now welcomes shelters and individuals to bring cats for safe, professional and cost‑effective spay-and‑neuter services.

“I have a feral, semi-feral and socialized stray trap, neuter, release program,” Estes said. “This is not an inside ‘fluffy floof’ program. If people have outside cats running around—feral, semi-feral, socialized strays—that’s what this program is for. We take the cats from the trap, to the table and right back to the trap. We are not doing any testing unless it’s requested by the colony owner or the rescue or the person who brought the cat in. We are doing nothing but sterilizations and rabies vaccines.”

Estes credits her veterinarian as the vital component to the success of her operation. 

“Doctor Jennifer Thedford out of Legacy Humane Vet Clinic offers her time for low cost spays and neuters to encourage my rescue to continue forward,” Estes said. “We’ve been working together for over two years now, and she comes from McKinney with her staff twice a month to do spay and neuters out of my rescue where we have an anesthesia machine and a sterile recovery area. We do a lot here, and she’s incredible.”

Although Estes doesn’t close off her services to personally owned cats, the program is primarily designed to spay and neuter community cats. Estes schedules more than 240 cats each month, and during Dr. Thedford’s twice-monthly clinics, she performs about 120 spays and neuters over those two days.

“A lot of rescues reach out to me,” Estes said. “In fact, we have a rescue bringing 30 to the next clinic day because I have no restrictions. If I have 100 spots, and you can get 100 cats here safely, we will sterilize 100 of your cats. So rescues find it very attractive to do a community trapping day or weekend, that way they knock out their community cats basically in just less than a week.”

When she’s not planning the two packed clinic days each month or making additional trips to Dr. Thedford’s office for more spay-and-neuter appointments, Estes also runs an adoption service.

“I’m turning away about 200 to 250 cats and kittens everyday in peak kitten season,” Estes said. “The adoptables that I bring in are typically those that have reached out to me privately, and if I do not have space available, I have to turn it away. There are so many mothers and kittens out there that the only solution is sterilization and vaccinations. We’ve got to sterilize these animals. I am going above and beyond doing everything I can do.”

While Estes’s mission is to protect stray cats in the community, it isn’t to expand their numbers. The effectiveness of community cats as natural pest control depends on moderation. Without regular spay-and-neuter interventions, stray cat populations can grow unchecked, and those extra cats often end up in overcrowded shelters.

“We’re full, the fosters are full, the shelters are full. Everyone is full, and it’s heartbreaking,” Estes said. “And so we’re constantly asking people to step up to the plate and take care of the animals that you feed. If you feed five, fix five. If you feed 10, fix 10. If you feed 30, let’s fix 30.”

On the opposite end of population control, disease is disrupting the balance of community cats – primarily strays. Whitesboro specifically is confronting a distemper outbreak in its feline population, a highly contagious and often fatal viral illness that spreads through bodily fluids and can linger in the environment. Parvovirus also remains a constant threat, both causes Estes is committed to addressing.

“Dr. Thedford has agreed that if Whitesboro will open a spot for us, we could hold low‑cost spay‑and‑neuter and vaccination clinics there, at an animal clinic or shelter, to help head off even more cases,” Estes said.

While some may see disease as a natural way to regulate the stray cat population without personal cost, allowing illnesses to spread rampant isn’t a responsible method, especially given the important role that community cats play.

“One of the things that people don’t realize is that feral cats are absolutely necessary in their community,” Estes said. “Without them, they would be overrun with snakes and rats and everything else that they do not want in homes or businesses. People do not understand how valuable working cats are, but the other thing they don’t understand is how valuable a working cat that’s sterilized is. We don’t need more cats, we just need to keep the ones we’ve got healthy.”

In an effort to control both disease and population, Estes urges citizens to take responsibility for the stray cats in their area and get them fixed. 

“Rescues are trying to offer solutions, but the solutions are the people individually,” Estes said. “The number one thing that the communities need to have is responsibility for the animals that live within it. That means sterilizations, testing and vaccines. They have to take responsibility for the animals that live there. Animal control is not the answer to everything, rescues are not the answer to everything. Curbing it right where it is is the solution.”

At the upcoming Aug. 4 clinic, Estes will officially spay or neuter her 10,000th cat – a milestone she once never imagined as either a want or a need.

“I never once in my lifetime ever said I hoped I had a rescue,” Estes said. “Never once had I ever trapped a cat until I got into this. And I can tell you, never once did I ask my husband to build me a barn. I never ever thought I would ever utter those words. So I want the community to rally around it, but the community has to understand it’s not a free service.”

Estes may have the largest freestanding cat rescue in the area, but she’s not the only individual with this mission at the forefront of mind. 

Nearly every rescue and shelter are working toward a healthier population balance, but their resources are limited and often quickly depleted. Still, on an individual level, much can be done when people take responsibility. While rescues always appreciate donations and volunteers, the most valuable act is when citizens spay and neuter the cats they feed on their back porch.

“I’m grateful that I had something to do when my son died because it is what saved me,” Estes said. “But now I’m just trying to save these cats, and people have to work together to do it. I can’t do it alone. It is just my name on the building. It just happens to be my name that’s out there that’s getting the attention. My facility is one of those that can help the animals, and I will gladly do that, but it’s not just me. There are lots and lots of rescues around, and lots of rescues need help. We’re all struggling – every single one of us. I am not any more special than the next. It is a community effort, and we need the community.”