Photos by Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Barbara Phipps of Galax holds a recovering feral cat as its anesthesia wears off at a feral cat health clinic offered through Angels of Assisi, a downtown Roanoke provider of spay/neuter services. Volunteers give the stray cats a quick health check and sterilization.

Stephanie Stieler, a fourth-year veterinary student at Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine in Blacksburg, neuters a feral cat during a clinic Sunday run by Alley Cat Angels Feral Cat Coalition.

Feral cats that have already been treated, including an ear clipping to show they have been sterilized, recover from anesthesia. Once they have been fed, they will be returned to their territory.

Lynn Chipkin from Indian Valley, near Floyd, volunteers her time with the Alley Cat Angels on the third Sunday of each month.

Saturday, a white and gray feral cat that lives beside a Southwest Virginia Kroger store jumped on the tailgate of Betty Bartschmid's pickup.

Bartschmid, who has been looking after the cat, caged the animal for a trip to the doctor -- probably its first.

It went to a wild-cat medical clinic Sunday run by a group calling itself the Alley Cat Angels Feral Cat Coalition.

Bartschmid, a cat lover, caretaker of feral cats and a program volunteer, explained that each month, the group briefly takes in feral and free-roaming cats for a course of medical treatment designed to combat feral cat overpopulation and health issues. The practice is called Trap-Neuter-Return, or TNR.

"This is a national movement," Bartschmid said.

The national group Alley Cat Allies in Bethesda, Md., which is against routine euthanasia for cat population control, advocates TNR as "the most humane and effective method to reduce feral cat populations," its Web site said.

The group argues that feral cats -- by definition unsocialized and unadoptable -- are best left to live outside but need sterilization and care. Some 24 volunteers Sunday lovingly cleaned ears, applied flea products and gave the animals their shots. Females were spayed, males neutered. Then, after a night's rest, the animals were headed back to the shopping centers, farms and neighborhoods where they run wild.

The clinic, open one day a month at Angels of Assisi, a downtown Roanoke provider of spay/neuter services, reports 962 cats treated since March 2007, with 72 treated Sunday.

The operation is organized assembly-line style. To get things going, volunteers injected the animals with a tranquilizer before removing them from the traps in which they arrived. When the cats passed out, volunteer Darcie Luster of Floyd County gave the now-floppy animals a head-to-tail examination for injuries or other problems.

"For the most part, they're pretty healthy," she said. "They tend to have parasites."

The president of the Floyd County Humane Society, Luster said she credits the TNR program with a decline in complaints about unruly cats in Floyd, fewer residents advertising free cats and less euthanasia at the community pound. Sterilizing wild cats in a given area reduces fighting and the associated spread of disease, she said. Yowling and spraying, two reasons wild cats get on human nerves, also occur less often, the group's brochure said.

At the surgery preparation table, volunteers shaved incision sites and sucked up the fur with a handheld vacuum. Four vets operated, among them Dr. Kelly Farrell, who directs Angels of Assisi. Because surgical wounds were glued shut and the animals received an injected antibiotic and painkiller, the caretakers only needed to give the four-legged patients appropriate rest, food and water before letting them go.

The white and gray cat Bartschmid brought was passed out at the vaccination station on a blue medical tray with a red tag on its foot bearing the number 0608-65. Tagging helps ensure that the cats go home with the caretakers who brought them.

"You don't want the cats to go home to a different location and get turned loose at the wrong place," Bartschmid said.

The whole package of services would cost well over $100 if purchased from a veterinarian, volunteers said. Through heavy use of volunteers, the coalition has brought the cost of treating each animal down to $13, which is paid by donors. Donations continue to be welcome, and the group particularly needs a restaurant that will feed volunteers at future clinics, where workers spend six or seven hours on their feet.

When the procedures were over, the cats were carted out the door in the same traps in which they arrived, looking a little dazed and in need of a good brushing and a meal. As Bartschmid waited for cat 65, which she has fed many times but never named, Debbie Puckett of Galax loaded 10 other cats in her car and flipped on the air conditioner.

Each has a story, she said.

"This one lives in Hillsville behind an apartment complex," Puckett said, pointing.

Then she drove off.

The feral cat clinic takes place the third Sunday of each month at Angels of Assisi, 415 Campbell Ave. S.W., Roanoke. Pet cats with owners will be referred to the owner's veterinarian. Only unowned free-roaming, stray and feral cats will be treated. Traps are available for loan. For more information about the clinic, contact Alley Cat Angels at feralcat@angelsofassisi.org or 344-8707, ext. 111. For more information about the cause, go online at www.alleycat.org.

-- Jeff Sturgeon