Interview! Sterling Davis, Atlanta’s “Trap King”

“You don’t lose cool points for compassion.”

Sterling Davis left behind a promising rap music career to begin working with cats professionally several years ago when he took a temporary job at an animal shelter in between tours. A lifelong animal lover, Sterling soon got hooked on TNR and cats.

During his training, Sterling noticed that not many men, and not many people in the black community, are involved in animal rescue, especially with cats. Sterling would like to change this, and so he brings to the table the idea that TNR-ing cats is something that everybody can do. To Sterling, it’s not about sex or age or race; he feels that “compassion is everybody’s job,” and he wants to let people know that being a man who loves cats doesn’t mean you lack masculinity.

Sterling is currently operating his own organization, Trap King Humane Cat Solutions, but he has also teamed up with Java Cats Café in Atlanta (check out Community Cats Podcast’s interview with founder Haydn Hilton in Episode #228) in order to show what he calls the “complete TNR process,” from trapping to spay/neuter/vaccination to adoption. He & Haydn Hilton are also teaming up to open a second location—a joint Java Cats/Trap King venture that Sterling says will be designed like a “man cave” in the hopes of attracting more men to visit. Sterling will be teaching TNR at the new location—something he loves to do anytime he goes into a community to trap. He wants people to know that TNR is rewarding and fun!

So what are some of Sterling’s favorite trapping tips? He tells us that while he loves to use jack mackerel and KFC chicken as bait, he once caught a cat using nothing but a red laser pointer to lure it into a trap! He prefers Tru-Catch traps, but will use whatever equipment is necessary to get the trapping done—and he will also work with as many different groups and clinics as needed in order to get the surgeries done! Sterling feels strongly that we get more done when we work together—and that working together can help reduce compassion fatigue in the animal welfare field.

Sterling’s funding so far has come solely from sales of his Trap King t-shirts and his GoFundMe campaign. When he goes out to a community to trap, he sets up a party-type environment, complete with music, in hopes of showing people that TNR can be cool. He hopes to keep the cool vibe going by eventually setting up a group he’ll call “Clowder” that he describes as “Sons of Anarchy meets TNR.” He wants it to be a way for more men and other demographics besides the usual “cat ladies” to get involved in working with cats. He sees the group as eventually expanding to have chapters (he calls them “colonies”) all over the country.

Sterling’s biggest challenge has been that some of the existing TNR and animal rescue community has been a little wary of him and his “edgier” approach. He hopes, however, that people understand that everything he’s doing is to gain more attention for TNR with different demographic groups. “It’s totally passion,” he says, and explains that there is a method to his madness with everything he does, including the language he uses to talk about cats and TNR. He just wants help for the cats, and he wants the energy to be positive and fun. In Sterling’s opinion, if we can do this work in a way that’s more fun, more people will get into it!

To learn more about Sterling Davis and Trap Humane Humane, visit him at Instagram, Facebook, and trapkinghumane.org.

Listen to Episode #243 Now