Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 20, 1994 TAG: 9404200078
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
So Mom Cat is allowed to breed, and she bears 12 offspring. Aren't they cute? Assuming half the litter is female, those six bear 72, also cute, who in turn bear 432, who bear 2,592, each just as cute as the ones before. In five years, Mom Cat is great-great-great-grandmother to 2,592 cute little kitties, and has contributed to an ugly problem: pet overpopulation.
How likely is it that Mom Cat's owner will have found good homes for her original 12 kittens, much less that each owner of a new kitten will have found a good home for each of the ensuing offspring?
Not very. In just the first quarter of this year, 216 unwanted cats were brought to the Roanoke Valley Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Seventy-two were adopted; 144 had to be killed.
The SPCA reports that only three of those cats were from Roanoke County, and two of them were adopted. Last year, 23 cats brought in from the county were adopted, and only 11 were euthanized.
Initially, that sounds wonderful to a cat lover - but the low numbers do not indicate the county has its cat population under control. Rather, they mask a problem: There are some owners with as many as 50 cats that, through sheer numbers, become nuisances in their neighborhoods.
It was sensible, therefore, for Roanoke County's Board of Supervisors to enact an ordinance requiring residents to license their cats and to limit the number residents can legally own to six.
Licensing alone won't make pet owners more responsible - indeed, owners who go by the rules and buy the licenses likely will be those who already are the most responsible. Nor, of course, will having a license make a cat more orderly or less sexually active (would that it were so).
But the licensing and limit does set legal boundaries that, if crossed, can result in action by the county. The county would have the authority to pick up unlicensed cats that have become neighborhood problems, and take them to the SPCA. There they could be retrieved by their owners for a fee or put up for adoption. If neither happened, though, they would be euthanized.
If Roanoke County increases the number of cats it picks up, there surely will be more than 11 killed by the SPCA in years to come. To kill even one animal that rightly should be a well-cared-for pet is sad. How pitiful to think of that number exploding.
Cold, heartless county? Cruel, unfeeling SPCA?
No.
The cruelty here lies with owners who do not prevent their animals from breeding in numbers beyond those they reasonably can care for. How much more compassionate, easier - and, in the long run, cheaper - to deal with pet overpopulation with preventive actions.
Roanoke Valley veterinarians offer a spaying/neutering program on a sliding-fee basis that should put the service within anyone's reach, regardless of financial status.
For the irresponsible owner, though, doing nothing but let nature take its course seems easier. The result: the need for local ordinances ... and euthanasia programs.
by CNB