Community Cats, Community Solutions: A Conversation with Stacy LeBaron
In this episode of 19 Cats and Counting, Rita Reimers speaks with Stacy LeBaron about Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) and why it benefits entire communities, whether you love cats or not. Stacy shares how TNR improves public health, reduces nuisance behaviors, and creates long-term humane solutions for free-roaming cats. They also discuss the exciting renaming of Community Cats Podcast to Community Cats Central and the educational classes now available to advocates and caregivers nationwide.
Trap-Neuter-Return is often misunderstood — and sometimes controversial — but as Stacy LeBaron explains, it is one of the most effective, humane strategies for managing free-roaming cat populations.
In this conversation, Rita and Stacy explore:
• What TNR actually accomplishes
• How sterilization reduces nuisance behaviors like spraying and fighting
• Why TNR improves quality of life for both cats and communities
• The public health and economic benefits of managing colonies humanely
• Why even people who don’t consider themselves “cat people” should support TNR
Stacy also shares the exciting evolution of her organization’s identity — from Community Cats Podcast to Community Cats Central, reflecting a broader mission of education, advocacy, and professional development.
Listeners will learn about the classes and training opportunities now offered through Community Cats Central, helping caregivers, rescuers, and advocates become more effective in their work.
Whether you’re actively involved in TNR or simply want to understand how humane community cat management benefits everyone, this episode provides clarity, facts, and actionable insight.
Listen to Episode #157 Now:
BIO:
Stacy LeBaron has been involved in animal welfare for over 20 years. She currently hosts a weekly podcast called the Community Cats Podcast where she interviews nationally and internationally renowned experts helping with the problem of cat overpopulation and cat welfare. In addition to the podcast, Stacy is committed to the model of virtual education by holding three weekend conferences, the Online Cat Conference, The United Spay Alliance Conference and the Online Kitten Conference. She hosts day long sessions covering specific topics around Feline Leukemia, Behavior and Fundraising. At the end of 2020, she also partnered with Neighborhood Cats to hold monthly virtually trapper training and certification workshops to better introduce individuals to best practices for trapping community cats.
Previous to starting the podcast, Stacy served for 16 years as president of the Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society (MRFRS). Under her leadership, the MRFRS assisted over 105,000 cats and kittens through a variety of innovative programs. Among the MRFRS’s programs are two mobile spay/neuter clinics, known as the Catmobiles, and an adoption center in Salisbury, MA. Stacy ran the MRFRS Mentoring Program, which began in 2011 and assisted 11,000 cats through its work with 77 different animal welfare groups in 14 states.
An expert in her field, Stacy is a current member of the Shelter Medicine Committee at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, an adviser to the Massachusetts Animal Coalition (MAC), President of the Board for PAWSitive Pantry in Vermont, Board member at the Vermont Humane Federation, Treasurer for the Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society, program leader for the Pet Food Task Force in MA, and program organizer for HubCats Chelsea. She is a past board member of MAC and the New England Federation of Humane Societies. She serves as the current administrative trustee for the LeBaron Foundation.
Stacy graduated from Vassar College. She now lives in Vermont with her husband and son.
Transcript: