It’s no secret that there are far more cats than there are homes, leading to a huge feral cat population. This is a problem not just in the US but in many other countries around the world. Part of this growing problem is sometimes blamed on people feeding these feral cats but not making sure they are also spayed or neutered.
A recent study looked at the differences in how people cared for cats falling into different categories:
Semi-ownership – Where the human did not think of themselves as the cat’s owner, but they had interacted with the cat for at least a month and fed the cat either frequently or always.
Ownership of passively-acquired cat – Where the human thought of himself to be the cat’s owner and had acquired the cat passively, such as taking in a formerly semi-owned cat..
There are no estimated numbers of how many semi-owned cats there are in the US today. An estimated 30-40 million community cats include feral, unowned, and semi-owned cats. A lot of the messages to spay and neuter cats are understandably aimed at people who consider themselves cat owners, since they are the ones who make the medical decisions about their feline family members. However, in this study, passively-acquired cats in Australia had a 99% spay/neuter rate. The US spay/neuter rate among owned cats is 85%, so messages to spay and neuter cats may be mostly preaching to the choir!
Semi-owned cats, on the other hand, have a lower rate of spay/neuter. In this Australian study, 47% of semi-owned cats were spayed or neutered. As a result, the semi-owned cats were more likely to had at least one litter of kittens, contributing to the ongoing feline overpopulation problem. Community cats contribute 80% of the feline birthrate annually. That’s a lot of kittens coming from feral, unowned, and semi-owned cats.
With so many kittens coming from this group of cats, should some of the effort currently going to into sending the message to spay and neuter owned cats be redirected to telling people that if you feed a cat, you also need to spay or neuter the kitty, too? The semi-owned cats seem to be the easiest part of the community cats to reach for spay/neuter efforts.
References and further reading:
PLOS One, Cat Ownership Perception and Caretaking Explored in an Internet Survey of People Associated with Cats
Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, Admissions of cats to animal welfare shelters in Melbourne, Australia
HSUS, Managing Community Cats
Journal of the AVMA, Humane strategies for controlling feral cat populations
This is SUCH an important message! Caring for a feral colony is about so much more than just food.
That is such an important message. I so wish more people would spay and neuter their animals.It is so frustrating when unknowing people think it is mean to get them spayed or neutered. It is just a matter if education. Anyway, great post. Have a great day.
What an important message! So many humans take care of neighborhood cats and think that just feeding them is all that’s needed. But not true…they need to be spayed/neutered too.
A M E N to that!!! Great message
Hugs madi your bfff
Very important information. The Community cats in the park where Mom walks have all been spayed or neutered.
The Florida Furkids
This is such an incredibly important message. It’s the only way we’re ever going to get a handle on the problem.
Super impawtant message! I tweeted!
That’s a very important message, and we have to repeat it again and again. Caring of ferals is not only feeding them. Purrs
That would be great, but we somehow doubt that those people are willing to accept the expense of this. Our rescue/TNR group gets grants every year to offer free spay/neuter, which we know encourages some of these who are feeders to to do the right thing and spay/neuter as well, but we suspect that’s what it will take around the U.S. to up those spay/neuter rates. XOCK, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo
yes yes yes!
I have heard the ‘oh there is this stray’ thing before, but it turns out they are feeding it and it lives in their house.. yeah, that isn’t a stray, that’s your cat..
Excellent post!
Great post! If any cat were in my care, he/she would be fixed.
Gweat posty. We fink ifin yous feed a kitty more than once da kitty purretty much belongs to you and shuld be altered ASAP.
Luv ya’
Dezi and Lexi
Feeding is the first step and once you start and don’t spay/neuter there will be more mouths to feed. The message needs to get out ad nauseum.
wunder if de …..
“if you feed me, spay me” fotoz
could be put on a hy way bill boardz… nation wide
another grate thurzday think bout it post guys ~~ ♥♥♥
Nicely done! I hope people will heed your call and work with the resources in their communities. Here, for example, you can trap and spay a feral cat for free. All you need to donate is your own time to trap, deliver and return the cat. Easy way to work for cats.
Jean from Welcome to the Menagerie
Great post – it’s great that people want to feed the stray and community cats in their area, but they need to take the responsibility to spay/neuter them too!
What a wonderful service announcement! Thank you!!!
Amen from us too! We sure are trying to do our part.
I wish we had more folks doing TNR.
Bless the TNR folks. This message is so valuable, and like many commented, there’s so much more to caring for these kitties than feeding. Spaying and neutering is so very important and it’s so surprising that in this day and age it’s still not being done.
I hope some people who have these semi owned cats read this. I also wish there were more programs and vets who would give discounts to those owners. Those people don’t take the cats as permanent owners no doubt is because they don’t want to pay for a spay/neuter.
great post! our mom is helping to get a handle on a feral population at her workplace…hence Sharpie…
we think people don’t understand the biology of cats; how just a kitten, really, can become pregnant, and how they cycle throughout the year, unlike dogs. the spay/neuter clinics in our area seem to fill up quick – we hope that is a good sign.
pip, smidge, minnie, hollie