Behind the Trap: A ZIP Code Shouldn’t Decide a Cat’s Future
How Street Cat Hub and rural volunteers connect community cats with lifesaving care
TNR Portales has helped 670 Portales community cats reach spay/neuter services. Photo courtesy of TNR Portales.
For a community cat in rural New Mexico, spay/neuter access can depend on distance, transportation, appointments, and a determined caregiver. Street Cat Hub partners with volunteers who trap cats far outside Albuquerque and bring them in for surgery, vaccination, and humane care.
Nancy Zagar is one of those volunteers. Through TNR Portales, NM, she helps organize trap-neuter-return efforts in and around Portales. Her page reports 670 cats helped by volunteers who do this work around full-time jobs. Their posts show the patience behind each number: humane traps, covered carriers, caregiver coordination, and long trips to Street Cat Hub.
From Portales to Street Cat Hub
One post captures the scale of the work: 23 Portales cats traveled to Street Cat Hub over one weekend to be fixed and vaccinated. A caregiver drove cats from her colony, turning separate trapping efforts into an organized transport. The Portales total then stood at 661; the page now reports 670.
Each covered trap holds a cat who may have had no other path to care. The vehicle also represents fuel, driving time, supplies, appointments, vaccines, recovery space, and coordination.
One Colony at a Time
TNR continues until every cat in a colony has been addressed. In September 2025, Nancy's page celebrated the early-morning trapping of a Portales colony's last cat. The post praised caregiver Janis Lewis and thanked Street Cat Hub for helping complete the colony.
A drop trap is set for the final cat in a Portales colony. The cat was trapped early the next morning. Photo courtesy of TNR Portales.
When every cat is sterilized, new litters slow. Caregivers can focus on food, shelter, and health instead of a growing colony.
When Routine TNR Becomes Emergency Care
Sometimes a cat arrives for spay or neuter and needs immediate medical help. Hopper came from Portales with a necrotic leg. Street Cat Hub provided an amputation and neuter, giving him relief and a chance to recover.
Portales, Bernalillo, and the Miles Between
Cats in the Town of Bernalillo and other outlying communities face the same access problem. Street Cat Hub provides the clinic capacity that helps caregivers create healthier, stable colonies.
Help Street Cat Hub Keep Saying Yes
Your gift helps Street Cat Hub stay ready for cats coming from Portales, Bernalillo, and areas where low-cost spay/neuter care is hard to reach. It can support surgery, vaccines, supplies, traps, recovery, transportation assistance, and daily operations.
Donations to this campaign are unrestricted and support Street Cat Hub's full charitable mission. Rural and outlying TNR is our current priority, but Street Cat Hub may direct donations to other mission-related needs as circumstances change.
Please donate through our Rural TNR campaign and share this story. Together, we can help make lifesaving spay/neuter care available across New Mexico - one cat, one caregiver, and one completed colony at a time.