Wolfe Island Friends of Ferals

Wolfe Island is the largest island in the Thousand Islands on the St. Lawrence River. Approximately 124 square kilometers in size, it is home to approximately 1400 permanent residents and 600 summer residents.

The Island one of those ‘convenient’ spots where misguided owners abandon unwanted pets, perhaps because they fear euthanasia if they surrender the pet to a shelter, or they think the animal has a chance of being taken in by someone, or will at least find shelter from the harsh winter weather in a shed or barn.

There is little question this has resulted in an explosion of feral and free-roaming cats all over Wolfe Island. Numbering in the hundreds, they are overwhelming caring members of the community, who see the suffering of these animals and want to alleviate their pain. From their own pockets, they have spent thousands of dollars to provide food, spaying & neutering, and shelter, in an attempt to re-home cats from these feral colonies.

The majority of the cats remain unneutered and continue to breed exponentially. Steps were necessary to begin to stabilize the population of feral cats on Wolfe Island and, in addition, create community awareness of the suffering that lies ahead for these creatures when they are abandoned to mercy. Those who abandon animals need to know that many will live a sad existence – alone, injured, diseased, hunted by predators, injured or killed on roads, rejected by existing colonies, and, in this same environment will give birth to litters born into the same fate.

We are a group of Wolfe Island residents who came together in March, 2015, to deal with the large population of feral cats on Wolfe Island. In December, 2015, we became a registered charity.

Our mission is the humane management of the large feral cat population on Wolfe Island through a program of live trapping, spaying, neutering, rabies vaccinating and releasing ferals back to their colonies to live out their lives.