Meet the Women of Freya Feline TNR, Inc. — warriors for unclaimed cats in Lansing, Iowa

When Kristie Ringelstetter of Lansing, Iowa, spoke to the Lansing City Council in late September, 2021 about forming an in-town trap-neuter-return (TNR) program for cats, she knew there would probably be some questions and concerns.

There was, for example, a concern about what happens when a skunk gets trapped, instead of a cat. “Who gets called, then?” the police chief wondered. A citizen at the meeting noted further that it was, after all, against city ordinances to “drop off” cats in town – “which is what you would be doing,” he said.

“Well, they’re already here,” Ringelstetter responded. “We’re trying to make sure they don’t reproduce.” On the question of the accidental skunk, she said she’d never had that problem; but she added that she would be talking with the DNR and animal welfare organizations about the possibility. She assured the police chief and the Council that she would not be calling them to handle such a situation if it arose. “And I’m not seeking any funding,” she noted. “I just want the city to be aware of our efforts.”

Ringelstetter had been personally altering cats out of her own pocket for more than four years, by that point. “We’ve identified at least five neighborhoods where this is an issue,” she told the Council. “Our program is a measure to prevent continued growth of a cat population that is out of control.”

Now, almost four months later, Ringelstetter and some of her friends – cat lovers and animal welfare advocates, all – have formed an organization to streamline their efforts. These are the women of Freya Feline TNR, Inc., named after Freya – a warrior goddess in Norse mythology who is associated with fertility and who rides a chariot pulled by two (usually blue) cats.

Freya Feline TNR, Inc, is a volunteer-led, charitable organization committed to education about the benefits of healthy unclaimed cat colonies and to controlling the over-population with an ongoing TNR program. Board members are Amy Stracener, Angel Walleser (vice president), Lyssa Eiden (secretary), Nicole Winke Gentes (director), Shane Scott, and Ringelstetter (president/treasurer).

Warriors unite

“I started feeding a stray cat about five years ago,” Ringelstetter recalls. “He must have told his friends because a few more showed up and brought kittens with them.” She says she has been able to socialize around 15 kittens and rehome them to friends and family over the last few years. “At first, I funded the vet bills out of my own pocket or with the help of the area humane society’s Feral Cat Vouchers. As the cats kept multiplying, I opened a GoFundMe and received around $1000 from friends and family toward spaying and neutering the adult cats that were now regularly showing up for breakfast and dinner.”

Ringelstetter quickly realized that altering only a few cats at a time meant that the remaining unaltered cats would continue to reproduce – upwards of three litters per year, with an average of four to five kittens per litter.

Meanwhile, some of her friends and neighbors had also been doing their parts to trap, alter and re-home or release the cats in their own neighborhoods. “Sometimes they’d pay out of pocket, sometimes they’d get TNR vouchers, and sometimes a very generous Lansing resident would put funds on deposit for our use at a Waukon veterinary clinic,” she says. “So there was already an effort to curb the reproduction; but it was a little scattered here and there, a little under-funded, and the cats just kept coming. It was getting to be overwhelming to be solo trappers.”

Winke Gentes — the attorney in the group — suggested they try to organize their efforts rather than just keep trying to get a handle on their own colonies. If they started a 501(c)(3), she said, they would be eligible for grant funding.

They held their first meeting at the end of October, 2021.

“These ladies are some of my best friends,” Ringelstetter says about the women who comprise Freya Feline TNR, Inc. They share one common, and binding, characteristic: Knowing how many unclaimed cats were living in town – cold, hungry, often sick or injured – was simply unacceptable to them.

“You see these cats around town – they’re really low to the ground – they’re literally prey; and their backs are humped – their bodies are stunted and underdeveloped because they’re malnourished,” Stracener says. “Somebody has to take some responsibility. I don’t know how people can separate the ‘pet’ that’s in their house from the cat they see outside – somehow, they seem to have less value.”

“We focus on what we can control,” Walleser says. So they work together by sending each other pictures of unclaimed cats, who then go on the group’s “most wanted” list. “I rescued a cat from a storm sewer last week,” Stracener notes, “and now he’s being fostered by Nicky.” 

Not a foster/adoption center

The group wants to make very clear, though, that their organization is NOT an adoption or foster center for unclaimed cats. “We created Freya Feline TNR, Inc. for the sole purpose of altering felines within the city limits of Lansing, Iowa,” Ringelstetter says.

At present, the organization has 12 standard traps and a drop trap. The veterinarian they use will alter 10 cats in a day, and costs run $60 for females and $40 for males. They have started a Facebook page for their organization, to help educate the community on their efforts and to raise awareness.

The group is still waiting for IRS approval for non-profit status, but they did recently receive a donation from the “Suzapalooza” benefit honoring Lansing resident Susan Russell, an animal lover and advocate, who died of cancer last year. “With that donation and other funds received, we altered and returned 32 cats in 60 days,” Ringelstetter says.

ED. NOTE: The National Feline Research Council reports that, “implemented with sufficient intensity (i.e., sterilizing enough cats in a given area), TNR has been shown to stabilize, reduce, and even eliminate free-roaming cat populations at a local level. Computer modeling suggests that population reductions are achievable if at least 30% of the unsterilized portion of a given population is sterilized every six months.”