All across the country, growing numbers of feral cat colonies are developing. Look behind stores and businesses everywhere and you will see pitiful, sad and pathetic victims of the overpopulation of domestic animals. You'll see uncountable numbers of unsocialized cats and kittens scratching out survival-level existences.
Almost every one of these animals will meet a horrific end. They multiply by the thousands and studies show few will live beyond three years. The lucky ones will die swiftly and mercifully. The simple and easy solution to this problem is to spay and neuter your animals. Yes, your animals.
If your cat has kittens and you are lucky enough to find homes for them all, you cannot guarantee that each kitten is homed for their entire life. And your kitten just took the place of one that could have been adopted from a pound. And if this new family does not spay or neuter your kitten, he/she can reproduce for years and no one can possibly find homes for all these animals.
This however, does nothing to solve the existing problem of the already feral and homeless animals alive today. Just feeding these starving creatures is not enough, well fed felines will merely breed more efficiently. These animals have to be trapped, altered, dewormed and vaccinated and placed in good homes if possible. They otherwise must be released into a supervised feral colony or unfortunately, and more commonly, euthanized.
And removing a group of cats and kittens from a colony doesn't solve the problem, it creates a vacuum and a new and different group will fill it. Also of note, feral and outdoor cats kill millions of birds a year. All of this of course costs money. No one person can possibly foot the bill but people coming together as a community, managing existing colonies and educating people about the problem can stop new colonies from developing and bring an end to the suffering of these animals.
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