Campus Cats Management

Kennesaw State University recognizes the importance of maintaining a safe and healthy campus environment while promoting humane and responsible management of community cats. The Campus Wildlife and Community Cat Program brings together university departments, designated caregivers, and community animal welfare partners to develop coordinated approaches that balance animal welfare, environmental health, and campus operations. 

Many members of the KSU community have developed meaningful connections with campus cats and have contributed to their care. While these efforts are often motivated by compassion, feeding in multiple or unauthorized locations can create unintended challenges, including attracting wildlife, contributing to sanitation concerns, and interfering with coordinated colony management.

To address these concerns, KSU is implementing a more structured approach to feeding and monitoring community cats. This coordination allows participating stakeholders to better understand colony activity, identify environmental concerns, and evaluate appropriate management strategies.

The program involves collaboration among KSU Environmental Health and Safety, university facilities and grounds personnel, designated campus cat caregivers, and community animal welfare organizations.

These stakeholders work together to coordinate feeding practices, monitor colony activity, address campus health and safety concerns, and explore humane population management strategies, including Trap-Neuter-Vaccinate-Return (TNVR), where appropriate.

Colony migration is a gradual process intended to encourage community cats to move away from areas where feeding activity may conflict with campus operations, sanitation, or wildlife management.

Through the coordinated relocation of designated feeding stations, participating caregivers can encourage cats to adjust their feeding patterns while monitoring their activity and well-being.

This process is being implemented as part of an evolving management strategy. Feeding locations, monitoring practices, and future management decisions may be adjusted based on observed colony behavior, environmental conditions, and university needs.

The KSU community plays an important role in supporting a coordinated and humane approach to community cat management.

Faculty, staff, students, and visitors are asked to refrain from independently feeding community cats or leaving food in unauthorized locations. Additional food sources can interfere with migration efforts, attract wildlife, and make it difficult for designated caregivers to monitor colony activity.

By supporting designated feeding practices and respecting established management procedures, community members help reduce environmental concerns while allowing program stakeholders to evaluate the effectiveness of ongoing efforts.

The Campus Wildlife and Community Cat Program is an evolving collaborative effort. KSU will continue evaluating management practices, monitoring campus conditions, and working with participating stakeholders to identify approaches that support animal welfare, environmental stewardship, and campus health and safety.

The cooperation of the campus community is essential to these efforts.