Feral Cat Assistance Through Community Grants

We recently awarded our Community Cat Program’s first feral cat TNR grant to the Animal Welfare Coalition of Northeastern New Mexico.  This grant will enable them to continue an important project they began earlier this year with a similar ASPCA grant.  Under that grant they fixed 180 free-roaming feral cats in San Miguel and surrounding counties.    Our grant should help them double that number.

San Miguel county is also one of the 10 counties we target with our low-income pet cat spay/neuter program – which over the last few years – has funded the sterilization of almost 6,500 cats through the 27 veterinary clinics that work with us.  These local clinics make free-and-local spay/neuter a welcome reality for low-income guardians – including the elderly, the disabled, the un-or under-employed, young families living on a tight budget and students.   Once their pet cats are sterilized, they become easier to care for – no more kittening, spraying and yowling – and stand a better chance of keeping their “forever” homes forever.      Those that don’t get fixed are always at  risk of being relinquished to shelters or abandoned outdoors where they form or join feral cat colonies.  

While our spay/neuter program isn't equipped to directly work with feral cats – we support the work of groups that can which is why we’re happy to fund the Animal Welfare Coalition project.  Their efforts complement our basic pet cat spay/neuter work and help further our mission of reducing the New Mexico cat population to a manageable number – stemming the growth of feral cat colonies and reducing shelter intake and euthanasias.