Oct. 16 is Global Cat Day as well as National Feral Cat Day — but at the Carol House Quick Fix Pet Clinic in St. Louis, every day is dedicated to the furry felines.
“Here, we celebrate it all year long,” said Andrea Schwartz, community outreach manager at Carol House. “So while there may be one day on the calendar that lets us know, hey, let's pay attention to that, it has to stay on our radar 365 days a year.”
Carol House has two locations, one in St. Louis on Jefferson Avenue and another in Rolla. The clinic has been around since June 2012, providing spays and neuters for pet dogs and cats, community cats and feral cats.
Through the Trap-Neuter-Return program, thousands of feral kitties in the St. Louis area are spayed and neutered each year, and 2,900 underwent surgeries last year between both locations.
The clinic offers a $25 spay and neuter fee for feral cats, with sliding scale options for customers in need.
Schwartz said many pets were missing following the May 16 tornado that struck St. Louis.
During a visit to the Carol House Quick Fix Pet Clinic on Jefferson Avenue on Tuesday, an unidentified woman came in seeking a place for her two dogs to stay while her home is fixed after the tornado ripped her roof off. She’s currently staying at a hotel.
“Months later, folks are still looking for resources,” Schwartz said after speaking with the woman. “There's been folks needing food, needing shelter for their animals. They're working on their homes (that are) still not safe for them to return.”
She said residents in various neighborhoods are considered community partners with Carol House as they feed, trap and keep a close eye on feral cat colonies. In recent months, they’ve reportedly seen new cats show up.
“There were indoor cats that were part of families that had to join feral colonies for food and survival,” Schwartz said. “And so some of the colonies that we're connected with through (our) community feeders, they have had cats joining, and they're like, ‘Hey, I don't recognize this cat. This cat is new.’ And come to find out, they've been cats that belong to someone. So to reunite those cats with their people so they can remain as a family, that's always really special.”
Those cats are scanned for microchips, and then the clinic attempts to contact their owners, she said. In the meantime, community partners make sure the cats are fed and taken care of until they can be reunited with their families.
Feral kitty takeover
What separates feral cats from house cats is that, behaviorally, they are wild animals — they’re also more prone to diseases and can be super skittish regarding human contact, and many live in cat colonies.
Without being fixed, two cats and their surviving offspring can produce over 80 million cats over 10 years, assuming there are two litters each year and about three surviving kittens each year, according to Carol House.
During the first year, at least 12 kittens are born. Then 66 by the second year and 382 kittens by the third year — and the snowball just keeps growing.
Cats stay pregnant for roughly 63 days and can have one to eight kittens, and sometimes more, in a single litter, according to Carol House. On Sept. 26, the clinic closed to the public for its own Feral Cat Spay and Neuter Day. The clinic focused on fixing feral community cats, and 126 of them were brought in for care that day through a partnership with Gateway Pet Guardians, St. Louis Feral Cat Outreach, Full Circle MO Feral and community trappers.
Some critics don’t see the benefit of fixing cats and releasing them back into the wild, but Carol House Community Cat Coordinator Bonnie Boime has a different perspective.
“It greatly improves their quality of life,” Boime said. “The males are less likely to fight, and the females get to exist for themselves and not constantly be pregnant or nursing, or often, both. Cats can get pregnant 11 days after giving birth. So some of these cats that live outdoors in colonies where there are intact females and intact males, the females are often pregnant and nursing at the same time, and it really depletes their bodies.”
When fixed, male cats stop getting into constant fights for mates, thereby decreasing injuries, Boime said. They're also less likely to spread some viral diseases through fighting or through the birth canal, and they're less likely to cross the road looking for mates, decreasing opportunities to get hit by cars, she added.
Boime said three out of four kittens that are born outside die before they're 6 months old. Her work at the clinic is worthwhile because when cats are fixed, their overall quality of life improves, she said.
“I love it when I pull up and I see a bunch of really well-fed, shiny, healthy cats lounging on a porch, and all of them have an ear tip, which means that all of them are spayed and neutered,” Boime said. “And I also love it when somebody refers me to their neighbor who's also feeding cats, and the people in the community are connecting us with other community members to expand our impact.”
