Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Mobile Vet Clinic Comes To Town To Fix Cats
GOAL IS TO REDUCE UNWANTED LITTERS
PRAIRIE GROVE — It’s estimated northwest Arkansas has one cat for every 10 people and of those cats only 2 percent have been neutered or spayed, according to Marcia Donley with NWA Community Cat Project.
The Cat Project is trying to do its part to help reduce the cat population, one animal at a time.
The organization, along with Friends of Prairie Grove Pound, last week brought in a mobile veterinarian clinic from Humane Society of Saline County. The unit parked in front of Prairie Grove Fire Department and by the end of the day, Dr. Eric Jayne, of Springhill, had spayed and neutered almost 50 cats.
Some of the cats were pets or farm cats, others were feral that had been caught in traps and some were just community cats that live outside in a neighborhood. The surgeries were provided at a discounted cost by the Humane Society and subsidized by the Cat Project and Friends organizations.
Donley said she picked Friends of Prairie Grove Pound to help with the first event because the volunteer group has had great success with fostering and adopting its animals. She was hosting a second event the next day at Fayetteville Animal Shelter.
NWA Community Cat Project is a new organization dedicated to helping the 50,000 unowned cats that live in sewers, drains and people’s backyards in northwest Arkansas, Conley said.
“A lot of people will feed cats but they won’t get them fixed,” she said. “Pretty soon, there are six kittens and the next year there are 14 kittens.”
She said she wants the Cat Project to bring attention to just how many cats are in the region.
Conley said feral cats are similar to raccoons. They are unsocialized and do not want to have any contact with humans. The best way to deal with them, she said, is a process called trap-neuter-return. She encourages residents to trap the wild cats, have them spayed or neutered and then to return them to their outdoor home.
Other cats are just abandoned, Conley said. Someone will think a kitten is cute and then will let the cat go when it becomes inconvenient.
Her ultimate goal, she said, is to prove that the cat population can be contained through spaying and neutering to prevent multiple litters from being born. In Austin, Texas, for example, she said 80 cats are neutered or spayed each day for free.
“We want to show that it can be done,” Conley said.
Prairie Grove has its own problem with cats and kittens, said Sharon Glover with Friends of Prairie Grove Pound.
This year, the pound was “slammed” with kittens and cats, for whatever reason, Glover said. The pound only has about three cats at the facility right now waiting to be adopted but Glover said kittens too young to adopt are in foster homes and will need places to go when they are bigger.
Glover said she was grateful for the Cat Project and the mobile vet clinic coming to Prairie Grove.
The program melds with the mission of Friends of Prairie Grove, she added, because Prairie Grove has a cat problem and the Friends wants to help take care of it.
“If we can do this twice a year for the next couple of years, it would start to put a big dent in the cat population,” Glover said.
For more information about NWA Community Cat Project, go to northwestarkansascommunitycat.org or its Facebook page. It also has a Go Fund account and is seeking cash gifts to match a $ 1,000 challenge donation.