Spay/neuter clinic needed
Cat owners; cat feeders; either owned, strays or ferals; the answer is the same. Spay and neuter your cats. Ideally all domesticated cats would be kept as inside house pets.Then eventually, there would be no feral cats. The outside risks are huge, including contracting rabies.. not to mention shot, hit by cars, chewed up by dogs. Rabies infections of cats are quite rare- typically found in wildlife- bats,raccoons- not in cats.
Cats do NOT have to go outside.That is a myth people believe or use as an excuse to let their cat roam,perhaps by someone too lazy to clean a litter box.
Our county officials need to come together and subsidize a low cost, full time spay /neuter clinic. Check out the prices at your local vet and you'll see they're so high no one witha modest income can afford to get their pets "done"- even the "low cost" is no longer low cost, especially in these "hard times".Of course, it also comes down to personal priorities as well. too, it comes down to personal priorities.
Providing a county facility that offers low cost spay/ neuter services, at VERY low cost or as a "whatever you can pay" to do these procedures, should be a responsibility of county government, just as a county health clinic is provided for humans. Perhaps not in Pennsylvania, but in many states the county shelter( and we have NO county facility) offers a range of services. And of course the vets could offer once a month, to give free time for this efforts. .
Citizens: you certainly are able to let your county commissioners know there is a need for this, and not just the wholesale killing of cats,especially feral ones, but by using the TNR( trap/ neuter/ return) approach. Check out www.alleycat.org then contact your commissioner and request action.And pet owners, don't dump your cat when you move and are not bright enough to find a "pets are okay" housing. it's out there- the SPCA has lists of these. All these efforts would solve much of the feral, stray, "give away kittens" problems.
Jane Heller
Spring Garden Township
