04/13/2025
Today is a glorious day for spay and neuter! We had 20 cats at Metro Ferals getting surgery, vaccinations, microchips, eartips, and parasite treatments.
As the sun shines, and the ephemerals emerge, spring harkens a more difficult reality for those working in Trap-Neuter-Return: kittens. We'd like to take this opportunity to highlight a difficult part of any TNR program - spay/abort.
There's no denying we are in the eye of the hurricane that is kitten season. Of the 20 cats we took today, 17 were females. Of those 17 females, 8 were pregnant. Two weeks ago, 7 of the females we spayed were pregnant. If we estimate conservatively that each female was pregnant with 3 kittens, 45 more cats would have been born into outdoor colonies if we had not gotten these females spayed. More than we took to both TNR clinics combined! With over 500 cats on our waiting list already, and only being able to spay/neuter about 45 cats per month, we wouldn't have been able to alter these kittens until next year. Female kittens can go into heat at 4 months old, and have their first litter at 6 months. This means those female kittens would have given birth to their own litters before we could have gotten them spayed.
As much as none of us want to do spay/abort, there is no alternative if we truly want to make a dent in the cat overpopulation crisis. There is an undeniable lack of resources for cat spay/neuter in our area, especially for community cats. We are the only organization in Morgan and Hampshire Counties solely dedicated to TNR (that we know of). There are no high-volume, low-cost spay/neuter clinics in the Eastern Panhandle. We have to travel almost 3.5 hours roundtrip to Mt. Airy, MD to utilize a clinic dedicated to TNR. (There are other low-cost clinics closer, but they are not high-volume.) Trapping for these clinics is physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting. We couldn't do more than 45 cats/month, even if we wanted to - we don't have enough volunteers to trap, hold, care for, and transport these cats. Given all of these factors, our high-volume spay/neuter efforts twice a month aren't enough. These cats are breeding faster than we can get to them.
Let's talk about the reality of kittens being born outside. It is estimated that only 25-50% of kittens born outside survive. Those that don't survive succumb to predators (including other cats), parasites, disease, weather, or moms too sick to care for them. And of those that do survive, many are sick from disease and inbreeding. The larger a colony of cats is, the sicker the cats are. Spay/neuter is the absolute best way to improve the health of a colony. But the fact remains that, even after getting altered, many of these cats will suffer from chronic illness, like upper respiratory infections. Being out in the field, witnessing the reality of these kittens being born outside, has given us all some level of PTSD. Kittens crawling with fleas, eyes crusted shut or worse, burst, riddled with internal parasites causing extended bellies and skeletal frames. I will never forget a scene I came upon that was too horrible to share on social media. That alone has made me a spay/abort advocate.
Why can't these pregnant females go to a rescue where their kittens can get adopted out? Let's talk about that, too! At the very basic level, there aren't enough homes for the cats already in rescues, shelters, and foster homes. Rescues and limited admission shelters ("no kill") are always full and say no far more than they say yes. And when they do say yes, they are often stretching themselves even more thin than they already are to accommodate a cat in dire straits. It is very easy to get overwhelmed as a rescue, because it can be hard to say no. On the flip side of the coin, open admission shelters, who HAVE to take an animal being surrendered, are often forced to make the difficult decision of euthanizing one cat to make room for another. And they only do so when they have exhausted all options, including pleading for rescues (who are already full) to pull cats. Each and every individual involved in these organizations are heroes, who have their heart torn out every time they have to say no, or have to euthanize for space. But they have to play by the real rules of cat rescue, which is that there isn't enough time, energy, money, space, volunteers, veterinarians, and homes to save cats without making really, really hard decisions. WE CANNOT ADOPT OUR WAY OUT OF THIS! We must spay/abort until this reality changes.
If you still can't bear the thought of spay/abort, we implore you to get out and do something! Don't condemn those who are already doing something and demand they do more. There are too few of us out here in the trenches. Be more than a keyboard warrior, and make a direct impact on cats' lives...TNR! Be willing to make the tough choices, because no matter what choice you make, it will impact a cat you've never met.
Today's surgery total was over $1,350. Please contribute through the Donate button below to help us help more cats!
