Week 1 of the drive to manage the Craig St. feral cat colony has been a great success. Four females were trapped and spayed. They will be released this weekend, to live out their natural lives. Although this may seem to be a small step, the simple act of sterilizing 4 female cats will prevent the births of almost 100 unwanted kittens this year, and thousands over the next 5 years.
Just so no one can pooh-pooh the statements in the previous paragraph, let’s do the math. Female cats can have several litters each year. Let’s assume that our females would each have had 2 litters of 5 this year. That’s 40 kittens, half of which would be female. After the birth of the first litters we would have 14 females. The new girls become fertile at about 4 months of age. So, now we have 14 females giving birth to an average of 5 kittens each. That yields 70 kittens for the second litter of the year. Total unwanted kittens in year 1: 90.
After the second litter we have 49 females.
Litter 1, year 2: 245
Now we have 171 females.
Litter 2, year 2: 855
If you’ve been keeping track, you should have a total of 1,190 unwanted kittens after just 2 years. All from 4 females.
Week 1 has been a resounding success. The process will be repeated in May. Appointments have been made for 2 cats on each of the 14th, 15th, and 16th. With luck, we’ll manage to use all of those slots.
