LETTER: With animal shelters overflowing, unwanted cats must be reduced

From Katie Winkelman
Sartell

Too much of a good thing, is not a good thing — animal shelters are overflowing.

Right now, we are in the middle of “kitten season.” You’re probably asking, “what is ‘kitten season’?” Well, it’s not actually an addition to the four seasons — it’s the time of year when cats give birth, flooding animal shelters across the nation, including our local Heart of Minnesota Animal Shelter, with homeless litters. “Kitten season” is really three seasons in one, starting in spring, peaking in late spring or early summer, and ending in fall.

The most effective way to help reduce the overwhelming numbers of unwanted cats is to have your own cat(s) spayed and neutered and encourage others to do the same. Spaying (in the case of females) and neutering (for the males) ensures that your pet cannot reproduce. Even if your cat only goes outside occasionally, or there’s a chance that he or she may get out, it allows plenty of opportunity for him or her to mate. Unaltered cats are driven by their hormones and tend to sneak outdoors primarily in search of a mate. Mating just once can start a domino effect that can result in dozens, even hundreds or thousands of unwanted animals.

In the span of seven years, an unspayed cat and her offspring can produce 370,000 kittens! Believe it or not, a female cat can become pregnant only one week after having kittens. It’s literally a baby boom and a huge challenge for local shelters. With already stretched shelter resources the sudden overwhelming increase in animals results in shelters often being forced to make the difficult choice of euthanizing many perfectly healthy animals due to lack of shelter space, finances, and potential adoptive homes.

Too many companion animals competing for too few good homes is the major consequence of uncontrolled breeding. However, pet overpopulation is not just a problem for the animals or for the shelters involved. Each year communities are forced to spend millions of taxpayer dollars trying to cope with the consequences of this surplus of pets. These public costs include services such as investigating animal cruelty, humanely capturing stray animals, and sheltering lost and unwanted animals.

All of us are affected by animal overpopulation. Much of that money is also spent to destroy these animals when homes cannot be found. Free-roaming cats have contributed to the decline in songbird populations, and are also a threat to other wildlife species. It is only when all of us assume the responsibility for pet overpopulation that we will see any decrease in the problem.

Yes, through spaying or neutering, you can help your dog and cat live a happier, healthier, and longer life, but you can help yourself to live happier too. Elimination of heat cycles along with a reduction in accompanying hormonally-driven behaviors (urine marking, roaming, aggression) make for a much more pleasant pet to be around. Medically speaking, spaying/neutering greatly reduces the risk of testicular and mammary cancers as well as a condition called pyometra, a potentially life-threatening uterine infection.
Even if your pet has just one litter and you find homes for all of them, each of those pets takes a potential home away from other homeless pets waiting in a shelter. Living creatures have become throwaway items to be cuddled when cute and abandoned when inconvenient. Such disregard for animal life pervades and erodes our culture.

The old adage that “if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem” is particularly applicable to unwanted pregnancy in cats as well as dogs. Please spay or neuter your pet — it’s the responsible thing to do.