Working for the Welfare of Others

Tucker resident Karen Willis believes in promoting healthy, prosperous lives, and this belief reaches into and motivates every facet of her work.

After running a magazine for over ten years, Willis shifted more of her focus to her work as an energy healer. She practices Thai-Yoga Body Therapy and sound therapy – using a number of crystal bowls – at Tucker's Harmony Yoga and Wellness Center. “Thai-Yoga Body Therapy is compatible with the energy work I do,” Willis explained; “I move a client into a light yoga position and work their body’s meridian points, going deep into their muscles.” Willis is also an ordained minister in the Church of Wisdom, located in McCaysville, Ga, and she is actively working to live a more Yogic lifestyle.

When not healing humans, Willis dedicates her efforts to a furrier species – feral cats.

Six years ago, “I was watching two black and white kittens roll around, playing, from the garden on my apartment's balcony,” she recalled. Inquisitive by nature, Willis began looking into these kittens – especially after noticing other seemingly stray felines roaming her apartment complex. “Once I realized they were feral, I had to learn really quickly,” she said.

Willis reached out to LifeLine Animal Project – previously No More Homeless Pets – for guidance as to how best to manage an uncontrolled, expanding colony of feral cats. “I then proceeded through the proper steps, alerting apartment management about my intentions to humanely trap the cats and take care of them, speaking with my neighbors – some of which already put food out for the felines. I also fed the ferals and initiated a TNR program – trap, neuter and return; but cats learn quickly. Thus, after one feral sees another trapped, he or she is likely to avoid the contraption. Trapping can be very difficult,” Willis explained.

Over three years, Willis tried to tame the unstable colony population, paying out of pocket for food, transporting and neutering. She had cohorts, but it was still an expense. “The apartment could've worked with LifeLine to control the population at no cost,” she said ruefully.

Over time, management sent Willis letters requesting she cease her work with the ferals, “for several reasons,” she noted. “Many people have the misconception that ferals are dangerous, aggressive or dirty animals,” she said, “which is completely untrue. They mark their territories, discouraging snakes and rats.” Also, food that a neighbor put out was attracting wildlife,” she concluded. When apartment management issued a final notice in her third year working with the animals, Willis was at a loss. “The year before this [last warning],” she noted, “[DeKalb] Animal Services spent six million dollars euthanizing stray and feral animals, which was not only expensive, but also ineffective. The homeless pet problem was still continuing to grow exponentially,” she added. Willis refused to surrender, allowing the cats to be captured and put to death. She turned to the media and the masses.

Pam Martin from Channel 2 Action News came to Tucker and interviewed Willis, as well as other members of the community. Willis again reached out to LifeLine, and within days, over 300 people called and flooded the management office, so much so that it was forced to temporarily shut down. Between Martin's exposure of the problem, Willis' persistence and negotiating done between apartment management and LifeLine, a one year trial period was agreed upon. LifeLine sent a professional trapper who managed to trap over 35 cats in a just a few weeks. The feral problem was eradicated instantly.

Trapped kittens were found homes; “adult ferals were spayed or neutered and given their rabies shots,” Willis noted. “Genitals are not removed but the glands (gonads or ovaries) inside them are. The area remains intact on the outside, with only small incisions made, and the recovery time is one day for males, three days for females. No special treatment [is] required during the recovery time ” she concluded.

Currently, no new strays are wandering in because the packs are well established, “and with the apartment’s TNR program, now in its third year, I'm able to call to the ferals, lead them to the wooded area of the complex and feed them without incident,”she noted. The population is healthy, respectful of their human neighbors and most importantly, controlled. “The program was an impressive success,” Willis said finally.

“[I want to] inspire other apartments and suburban communities to do TNR programs – they do work. Apartment communities are funded for free clinic spay and neuter in DeKalb County. I’m hoping that people will spay or neuter their pets, too. It’s so inexpensive, and it really does help. There is a major pet overpopulation problem in Georgia, particularly in DeKalb and Fulton [counties].”

At one point, Willis shared her home with six cats – “six cats that changed my life,” she claimed. “Some people say that if I care for cats so much, I must not care for humans. All my work is about opening the heart and caring for something or someone other than yourself; my life is about promoting life, all life,” she concluded.

Important facts to know:

If you suspect a population of ferals exists in your area, contact LifeLine Animal Project. “LifeLine assists, organizes and encourages TNR programs. It has an affordable spay / neuter and vaccine clinic and a shelter where you can adopt homeless animals,” Willis explained.

LifeLine Animal Project

P.O. Box 15466
Atlanta, GA 30333
(404) 292-8800
info@AtlantaPets.org

How do you recognize a feral cat already part of a TNR program? If you see a feline with a deliberately snipped off ear – a small, yet visible portion of the animal's ear will be cut off at the top, sometimes at a slight angle – that cat is already involved in a TNR program and should be left alone. Animal control officers recognize this distinctive marking and will not capture the animal unless it is visibly a stray, not a feral. The difference: feral felines are at least second generation wild, born into the wild. Strays are animals that, although they may have assimilated into a feral pack, once had homes. “Many of these [strays] are receptive to human attention, will rub against you or allow you to hold them; they won’t run and hide when you approach them. Ferals will scatter as soon as they see you,” Willis added.

 Willis conluded:  “Animal Services in DeKalb [County] encourages TNR programs because they have proven effective in controlling feral cat populations. [Simply] removing a feral cat population doesn't work. Another colony of un-spayed / un-neutered ferals just moves in its place. There is no way to remove the cats because they are breeding faster than [they] can be removed. A TNR colony continues to occupy a territory. I witnessed all of [this] first hand. Cats from other colonies – ones that are not spayed, neutered or vaccinated – tend not to move into the area."