Celebrate community teamwork with the Ontario SPCA and Humane Society
The Ontario SPCA and Humane Society is celebrating the community teamwork underway to help manage community cat populations.
We held our first free TNR (trap-neuter-return) clinic at the Ontario SPCA Centre Veterinary Hospital in Stouffville on Nov. 24. We also offer spay/neuter services for feral cats through our spay/neuter services and The Ontario SPCA and Humane Society’s Mobile Animal Wellness Services unit. This free event is an additional step in our spay/neuter support efforts. The day was made possible thanks to the generosity of supporters donating to our Community Cat Program, which allowed us to spay and neuter 27 cats – 19 of which were females! If the average female community cat can have three litters per year, with an average of four kittens per littler, and has a lifespan of about five years, that’s 60 kittens one cat can produce in her lifetime. One spay/neuter event helped prevent an estimated 1,140 offspring!
Community cats are unsocialized cats that originated from our unfixed pet cats that were abandoned or lost, and now call outside their home. They live outdoors, which can be challenging without the help of a colony caretaker to provide food/water, shelter, and of course, sterilization and vaccinations. It takes a community to work together in managing and providing TNR services to feral cat colonies. The Ontario SPCA is proud to be a part of that community.
“I am thrilled that we are finally able to offer this opportunity to our local TNR groups that have been taking on this challenging work for years! It’s been a large goal of mine to be able to support these groups on a larger scale. We are all working towards one goal – doing what’s right for our community cats. This program is not only a win for the cats, but also strengthens our relationships within our communities,” says Monica Seto, Manager, Shelter Health & Wellness at the Ontario SPCA and Humane Society.
Read more about our community cat support programs on our blog.
Caring for cats at no cost
“The colony caretakers are very appreciative of having the cats they care for being vetted with no cost to them as they cannot afford the vet costs and/or have little opportunity to get the cats to a vet,” Janice Jones-Skinner, a member of the Kawartha Lakes Community Cats TNRM Committee, says of the TNR Day. “This clinic assured these cats of returning healthfully to their colonies and they will not be reproducing.”
We are very grateful to be able to continue to support our Community Cat TNR groups wherever possible. We hope to be able to continue these free TNR days in the new year, with a goal of alternating monthly between our two spay/neuter services locations in Stouffville and Barrie.
“We have helped way more cats than usual this year and found ourselves with no resources to help any more. Your free spay/neuter day allowed us to TNR a few more cats at a trailer park that is overrun with cats that we have been chipping away at for a number of years,” says Eva McDowell of the Georgina Feral Cat Committee.
If you would like to donate to our community cat support programs, click this link.