Francis of Assisi Society's mission is to help stray, abandoned and
feral cats. Any organization which exists to help animals must include
a wholehearted effort to make pet owners aware of the necessity to spay
and neuter. The Society works in conjunction with VSNIP (Vermont Spay
Neuter Incentive Program) to help low-income families find an
affordable way to have their animals spayed or neutered. We send
volunteers door- to- door in some neighborhoods to make pet owners aware
of this program. Through VSNIP, income eligible families can
have their pets spayed or neutered for a co- payment of twenty-five dollars. http://vvsahs.org/vsnip.php
We also offer assistance and education for people who are attempting to feed and help feral colonies to survive. The concept of trap-neuter-return for such colonies can greatly reduce the ever growing population of homeless animals. By using humane traps, cats can be captured for spaying or neutering, and returned to their colonies to live out their lives. This is far kinder than euthanizing healthy feral animals to prevent such colonies from growing larger. There is an often quoted statistic which maintains that a single female cat and her offspring can produce 420,000 kittens in just 7 years. This is not a scientifically proveable number. Most wildlife biologists feel that the mortality rates for free roaming cats are similar to other wild carnivores, that one female averages six kittens a year, and 75% of these will die before reproductive age. Using this more realisic approach one cat and her offspring will produce 100 cats in seven years if all adult cats remain alive for that time. This still is a staggering number, but one that can be greatly reduced by trap-neuter-return. We also try in many cases to capture the kittens in these colonies while they are still young enough to be socialized, placed in foster homes and made ready to be adopted into permanent loving homes.
