Supply was high in the Harbour City cat market when the BCSPCA announced it would cut adoption fees in half until July 31 to help clear out waiting felines from its shelters across the province.
Last week, the B.C. SPCA announced it had 734 felines in its care across the province. To put it in perspective, the society had 94 kittens under its care in Nanaimo alone on Thursday.
So overwhelmed is the Nanaimo shelter — it has room for 38 cats — it has turned to foster families in addition to alternate adoption centres to help deal with the numbers.
“There was a six-week period in May and June where we admitted 235 animals, which is incredible,” said shelter manager Leon Davis. “In June alone, we’ve had 121 felines surrendered to us, so we currently have 132 felines in care.”
For comparison, there are 17 dogs in the shelter.
An unspayed kitten can begin reproducing in as little as four to six months. Mature cats have two or three litters per year with as many as five kittens each.
One mating pair of cats can expand into hundreds of felines within just a few years.
“Outdoor cats are the No. 1 invasive species for decimating wildlife,” said Davis. “When they’re not spayed or neutered, that is just magnified so much because they’re having kittens.”
Nanaimo’s city council recognized the problem when it approved $25,000 in funding in April to help the SPCA maintain its program to spay and neuter the city’s cats for reduced fees.
The spay-neuter initiative program has been in effect since 2002. SNIP helps low-income residents get their cats fixed for as little as $50 and, in many cases, free of charge.
Through the program’s life, 5,601 cats have been fixed at an estimated cost of $360,000.
“I can’t imagine where we would be now had we not had the SNIP program,” said Davis.
Nanaimo’s kitten problem is not just a costly one. Shelter over population decreases the welfare of the cats and can lead to disease outbreaks when “difficult decisions have to be made.” To avoid euthanizing cats, the shelter has turned to willing members of the public, like Becky Knight, to provide extra space for unclaimed litters.
“In our house, we have about 17 cats,” said Knight, who has shared her apartment with eight of the shelter’s kittens for the past month. “When I come home from work, there’s eight kittens running to me. It’s the cutest stampede ever.”
But caring for that many cats is not easy, nor cheap. To help foster homes, the shelter has provided temporary caregivers with litter and food, but with so many cats to care for, the supplies have sometimes run near to the bottom.
As adorable as they are, caring for eight kittens can be a handful.
Knight turned to social media to help the shelter find homes for the ones under her care.
She said they would be ready for adoption within two to three weeks.
