A cat altered at the Animal Lovers League shelter in Glen Cove last week recovers after surgery.
In late December, Ken Robinson asked for help with a feral cat problem in his Lindenhurst neighborhood.
On Feb. 13, 14, 15, volunteers for the Animal Alliance of L.I. and the L.I. Cat Project trapped a dozen feral cats in the area and took them to the Animal Lovers League shelter in Glen Cove as part of the trap-neuter-return program (TNR), which is widely recognized as an effective means of reducing the wild cat population.
Joan Phillips, vice president of the Animal Alliance, said the 12 cats were among 130 altered at the shelter last weekend in recognition of Spay Day USA, an annual campaign by the Humane Society of the United States to help limit the number of feral cats and pets. The cats also were vaccinated and “ear-tipped” for identification.
Phillips explained that while the cat is under anesthesia, “a little piece of the left ear is taken off horizontally. The ear is cauterized [so there’s not bleeding] and then you can tell from a distance the cat has been altered and has had its rabies shot.” She said squaring off very tip of the ear doesn’t hurt the cat and hasn’t discouraged families from adopting feral baby kittens that can be domesticated.
As the cats recover, they’ve been returned to Lindenhurst. “The people who have been feeding them will continue to feed them, but the colony can’t grown in numbers,” Phillips said. If the cats hadn’t been caught and fixed, she said, “lots of unwanted kittens would have been born this spring.”
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Comments (1)
That is a great idea in saving feral cats to reduce the wildcats population.