(Host) At the end of April, just before the
build-up to Mothers Day, educator, writer, and commentator Mary
McCallum gave the gift of non-motherhood to her community by
volunteering at a low-cost spay and neuter clinic hosted by the
Springfield Humane Society.
(McCallum) In a church basement that had been transformed into
an operating room, I got a crash course in spaying and neutering,
vaccine injections and kitty reproductive systems. I saw that a feline’s
uterus is shaped like the letter Y, and along its two extended arms a
pregnant cat’s tiny developing kittens are lined up like strings of
pearls. Peering over the vet’s shoulder, I observed that neutering males
required on average a simple ninety-second procedure, while the small
army of females took closer to eight minutes each and needed respiration
support.
I was part of the Recovery Table team, an assembly
line of volunteers working over limp cats still zonked out from
anesthesia. We monitored breathing, cleaned ears, clipped claws, checked
for fleas and parasites, administered rabies and distemper vaccines,
and brought them back to wakefulness before transferring them to cat
carriers. With the ferals that had been trapped on a local farm we had
to work quickly to avoid the sudden fury of claws if they awakened too
soon.
In just one morning, 28 cats were either spayed or
neutered and removed from the reproductive stream by a crack team of
seven volunteers and one dedicated vet. If that doesn’t seem like much
of a dent in the soaring feline population, consider this: one unspayed
cat averages four litters a year of perhaps five babies each, and she
can have kittens for as long as she lives. In a dozen years that mom can
launch 240 lives, a conservative estimate. With more than half of our
patients that day being female, it’s possible that the births of more
than 3,800 kittens were prevented. And that doesn’t take into account
the numbers their offspring would have produced in their own extended
reproductive lives – estimates quickly reach the hundreds of thousands.
And sadly, most of them would not have found homes.
Owners of
the cats brought in that day were taking advantage of a bargain-priced
service developed to reduce out-of-control feline populations. Every
year, 6 to 8 million homeless animals nationwide enter shelters, and
hundreds of thousands are euthanized. Throughout Vermont, organizations
offer low cost spay neuter clinics, financial assistance, and "Spay the
Mom" programs that encourage families surrendering unwanted puppies and
kittens to have the mom spayed at no cost. Dedicated volunteers run Trap
Neuter and Release programs for feral cats, and groups like Green
Mountain Animal Defenders and the Vermont Spay Neuter Incentive Program
work tirelessly to spread the word.
In just three years, the
Springfield Humane Society has taken nearly a thousand fertile cats off
the birthing train. My stint at the clinic, surrounded by yowling,
virile and fertile kitties, redefined some of my assumptions about the
miracle of birth – at least when it comes to cats.