Solving stray-cat issue must be a joint effort

from today's Chronicle Herald -

Solving stray-cat issue must be a joint effort

By MARY HILL
Sat. Mar 7 - 5:29 AM
In response to letters in this paper on March 5, the Nova Scotia SPCA wishes to clarify its position and mandate with regard to the stray cat situation in the province.

The NS SPCA’s primary mandate is the prevention of cruelty to animals. In order to carry out this mandate without public funding (aside from a $3,000 annual grant from the Department of Agriculture), the NS SPCA must raise several hundred thousand dollars a year to pay for the cost of 2.5 cruelty investigators plus all costs associated with investigating and prosecuting animal cruelty acts in Nova Scotia, and caring for the animals seized and surrendered through those cruelty cases.

In addition to our core mandate of prevention of cruelty, the NS SPCA also works very hard to take in abandoned and unwanted animals whenever space and resources allow.

The NS SPCA provincially accepts over 5,000 unwanted cats a year. While the function of animal control falls under city/municipal responsibility in Nova Scotia, the NS SPCA cares about the welfare of all animals and works hard to be part of the solution and, as a result, all of our branches throughout Nova Scotia take in unwanted animals whenever resources allow.

Unfortunately, this problem is much bigger than our charity can handle on its own without public support and funding.

In our continued effort to be part of the solution, the NS SPCA will be announcing a public town hall meeting in the near future to ask concerned members of communities within Nova Scotia to work with us towards a solution to the cat overpopulation challenge in our province.

The NS SPCA has material and program plans, but without the support of our communities and government, the NS SPCA’s efforts in this regard continue to suffer.

The NS SPCA invites all concerned residents and city/municipal staff who wish to be part of the solution to please attend this town hall and support our charity in making Nova Scotia the no-kill province that we all wish it to be.

Details of the town hall session will be posted to our website at www.spcans.ca once confirmed.

Mary Hill is secretary, board of directors, Nova Scotia SPCA.

I came across a lady who has a cat blog, and she's got a great post about the story this week about the Windsor woman being fined $5 for killing the kittens - and she actually has some proposals for what the SPCA can do to make things better for cats in the province and thoughts on what Susan Keizer might be feeling. It's pretty interesting - you can read it at "My Feline Friends"