Owners must neuter free-roaming cats, say animal welfare groups - by SwissInfo.ch

Having whitnessed first hand in Malta how rapidly uncontrolled feral cat colonies can grow, we, the authors Islands of Cats are ardent defenders of TNR - Trap-Neuter-Release. The call for a neuter/spay obligation has become louder recently, with an an estimate of 300'000 feral cats roaming the country. On June 12, Swissinfo.ch wrote online:

Swiss animal protection groups have collected more than 115,000 signatures calling for the obligatory castration of cats that go outside.

Symbolic image - stray cats in Floriana, Malta - © 2016 Gabriele Ruttloff-Bauer

The aim of the non-binding petition is to curb the number of stray cats and reduce unnecessary suffering. The Network for Animal Protection (NetAP) and Tier im Recht (TIR) handed in the petition, backed by more than 150 organisations, to parliament on Tuesday. They estimate that 100,000-300,000 stray cats live in Switzerland. One of the main causes of the stray-cat problem is that owners of free-roaming house cats don’t always neuter them, with the result that these cats mate with strays, producing offspring. ... read more.

Study: Income is Major Factor When Owners Avoid Sterilizing Cats (via VPN)

Veterinary Practice News 15 December 2016: "A study published in the September issue of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association found regular veterinary visits by low-income cat-owning households to be a luxury most say they cannot afford.

In fact, nearly 70 percent of people who divulged their annual household income as less than $25,000 said they never took their cat to a veterinarian before they visited a low-cost sterilization clinic.

The study was conducted by Valerie Benka, MS, MPP, of the Center for Animals and Public Policy at Tufts University and Emily McCobb, DVM, Dipl. ACVAA, a clinical associate professor in the Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine.
» Read more and see the study results

Japan Saves Native Rabbits by Neutering Thousands of Cats (via Catster)

To protect the Amami rabbit, a "living fossil," Japanese officials are using TNR rather than mass killing. Other nations should take notice. 

Catster 11 May 2016: "Japan really loves its cats. This makes managing stray overpopulation in ecologically vulnerable areas a challenge, at least if you believe it should be done in a way that doesn’t involve cruelty to animals. Other nations, including Australia and New Zealand, take a horrific and merciless approach with “culling” that often uses brutal tactics such as trapping and mass poisoning, even though these methods often have unintended consequences. For Japan, these options were a nonstarter when looking at how to protect the fragile Amami rabbits of Tokunoshima island, so the nation devised a better..." read on.

Why Should I Neuter My Cat?

10 good reasons to have your cat neutered.