By Heather Abrey
Kitchener Post staff
Animal shelters across the country are either at or over their capacity to care for cats, according to research done by the Stratford-Perth Humane Society, and Kitchener is no different.
From June to October, the KW Humane Society takes in about 100 cats per week, according to the organization?s executive director, Jack Kinch.
?It?s seasonal. Certainly when the cats start going into heat in late winter and early spring it makes for an extreme situation,? he said.
?Those are litters that are found, those are abandoned cats, those are surrenders from individuals that can no longer care for them? ? it?s a series of things. But the biggest thing is unwanted litters.?
Cats that end up in a shelter have a less than one per cent chance of being reunited with an owner, according to the Humane Society, while dogs have a 30 per cent chance. This is partly because few cats wear identification, while dogs are often found with collars.
?Dogs, if you go back a generation and a half ago, our organization would have been referred to as the dog pound,? said Kinch. ?There were bylaws that were enacted that ensure dogs are licensed and identified, so we?re able to return about 30 per cent of all dogs that do come in here.?
The study estimated there were 600,000 cats across Canada that did not find a home in 2011.
While spaying and neutering pet cats is the best way to fight cat over population, according to Kinch, microchipping is also important. This allows cats to be returned to their owners, rather than being lost in the system.
The KW Humane Society is finding new ways to house the multitudes of cats they see, including newly introduced colony rooms that house groups of cats together.
?What we?re trying to do is try to create a better environment to prepare cats for retail partners. Some of them have colony rooms,? said Kinch, noting that the practice also better prepares the animals for adoption. ?Most of our cats, prior to a year ago, were all kept in separate cages, and it was stressful for them to all of a sudden be put in with other animals they hadn?t been acquainted with.?
The colony rooms also allowed the KW Humane Society the flexibility to house 80 cats that came in when they were discovered in the home of a hoarder.
?We?ve increased our capacity here by about 50 per cent in the last year, but it has no impact on the problem. We could build houses for cats all over the place and it wouldn?t make any difference,? said Kinch.
?There are more cats than there are homes.?
The biggest issue is that cats are often left intact, without being spayed or neutered, he said.
?The population of dogs is much less because most people spay and neuter them. Cats are treated totally different by their owners. A lot of people don?t spay and neuter their cat because they?re indoors and they never get out,? said Kinch. ?Yet, for some reason, these litters keep appearing and a cat that gets out and doesn?t get picked up becomes a feral cat, and pretty soon you have feral populations just like there are in town here.?
While no study of the area has been done, Kinch estimates there could be between 20,000 and 30,000 feral cats in Kitchener-Waterloo.
Many communities have low-cost spay and neuter clinics available for pet owners. While it was identified as a need, no such clinic exists near Kitchener.? The closest Ontario SPCA clinic is in Hamilton, but doesn?t accept pets from outside the city. Newmarket and Barrie are the closest low-cost clinics that are open to anyone.
However, plans for a low-cost option here are in motion.
?If all our plans work out, we will have a spay/neuter clinic here in 2013 that will be operating on a regular basis,? said Kinch. ?It?s been an identified need for some time.?
habrey@kitchenerpost.ca
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