Never Enough Surgery Slots!

• On 6/8 we sent 11 ferals, 9 friendlies to DCAS, 10 females, 10 males.
• 6/9, ADOPT squeezed in one male feral.
• On 6/10, a friendly male went to GEAH for neuter, dental and a shave. Hawthorne was in a lot of pain from the mats and one really bad tooth.
• 6/15, 23 ferals went to DCAS, 13 female, 10 male. 17 of these cats came from one location, 11 of those were subsequently relocated. We have 17 more to TNR at this location at a minimum.

This brings us to 69 for June, 302 for 2023, and 14,254 since our beginning in 2007.

The number of calls is overwhelming and there are not enough surgery slots to neuter everyone. We constantly get calls from surrounding areas as people hear such great things about us – but there are not enough veterinarians! Every week we are balancing ferals we could trap against fosters who are old enough and may already have adopters – do we prevent kittens or make room for more coming in that we didn’t manage to neuter the adults in time? It is a huge challenge!

We recently started a location that resulted in pulling 35 five- to seven-week-old kittens. The caretaker had 4 mamas who gave birth one after the other. So grateful to ADOPT, Naperville Area Humane Society and DuPage Animal Services for taking all these brown tabbies, yes, all of them were brown tabbies, and finding fosters for them to go on their way to great adoptive homes. We have at least 17 more adults to get at this location, wish us luck that there will be no more born in the meantime!

20 cats on 6/8, with kittens in crates waiting for foster

Haven't taken night time pics before, these are the 23 for 6/15 plus some holdovers, kittens, awaiting relocation, lots going on!

These are part of the 35 kittens we took from one location.

Here is Hawthorne after he was trapped, mats are much worse than the picture shows.		Here is Hawthorne now, his shave on 6/10 is already starting to fill in and he is enjoying the Green Room at the building.

Donors Are The BEST!

Cannot express how grateful we are to our donors. You keep us going! Our cats and kittens are fed and comfortable, we can do more than vaccinate and neuter when we need to, we keep increasing our number neutered, we have a building, and we have you all to thank for that.

Would like to share how things are across the country: “Charitable giving in the United States declined in 2022 -- only the fourth time in four decades that donations did not increase year over year -- according to the Giving USA report released Tuesday. “Total giving fell 3.4% in 2022 to $499.3 billion in current dollars, a drop of 10.5% when adjusted for inflation. There was a 20 to 25% decline in the stock market and an 8% inflation rate, but Americans still gave nearly a half trillion dollars.”

Almost daily, I get notifications of “donation sent!” from Chewy and Amazon. Donors are taking the time to send a case of food, a bag of kitten kibble, some toys and it is greatly appreciated! Chewy does send out an email to announce a donation is coming but still does not share the donor’s info. I’ve fallen behind on my Amazon thank you’s but I’m trying to catch up!

Facts And Figures

You see that we track how many cats we’ve done from the beginning by checking our “How Many Cats” tab on our Home page. DCAS prepares a report of how many total surgeries they have done since 2018 – when they received the mobile unit and started doing surgeries for us. If all the projected births had happened, we would have over 61,000 more cats to deal with. These are only DCAS figures, because we use ADOPT for at least the same number in a year, these numbers could be doubled. Wrap your head around that one!

This chart shows the prevention of births based on ½ of all births being female and average of 4 kittens in each litter, 3 litters per year possible, cumulative effect.

DuPage County Statistics – the estimated 2023 population in DuPage County is 937,662, with 344,314 households, a $54k average income and a 7.46% average overall poverty rate. If we were not practicing TNR, there is no way to find homes for an average of 12,000 additional adoptive homes each year for cats and kittens, nor can our current Rescue facilities house this many cats. Please think about it and do your utmost to get every cat neutered!

New Shot Could Be Permanent Contraception in Cats

This new study created a stir in the TNR community. From the limited number of cats and the short duration, yes, it appears to work without significant drawbacks to the cats. The reality is that the feral cats would still have to be trapped, sedated, microchipped, ear tipped to prevent future surgery, wouldn’t they? and what about all the other important health care that cats get at the time of surgery, vaccinations, hernias, wound care, finding dental issues and tumors, etc. Surgical spaying has long term health benefits – would these cats still develop pyometra in the future? It would not find and correct that condition in a female already beginning that life-threatening condition. We often do not know in advance if a cat is male or female if they are younger in age until it is sedated and on the table. There is no information on hormone-related behaviors – surgically spayed females do often mellow so much after spaying. This raises so many more questions! 

Events Coming

We have been so busy! Working on the next online Raffle, online Giving Grid and yes, still planning to have an event to celebrate our 15 years – may not happen til closer to our 16^th but we’re working on it! Hang in there!