Leaving Well Enough Alone.

North Carolina just passed a bill establishing two methods of funding spay/neuter. Melissa Wheeler wrote about the bill in The Times News on August 5th. The article explains that the two methods are a 2o cent increase on the rabies tag and a special license plate for the state. And Wheeler makes a very good point:

"In my personal opinion, pet overpopulation is not just an animal lover’s issue. It’s a social and health issue that affects all the citizens of our state. The tax cost of housing, feeding and eventually euthanizing and disposing of hundreds of thousands of unwanted shelter animals is not small. By spaying and neutering cats and dogs, the tax savings could potentially be enormous."

Animal shelters are necessary in every community or county, and funding them is everyone's problem. Reducing the number of animals that go through animal shelters is not only a morally worthy goal, but an economically worthy goal as well. Some areas have realized that every dollar spent funding spay/neuter programs saves more dollars in animal control costs.

But Wheeler just couldn't let the story end there. She tries to make a point for emphasis about the good that spay/neuter can do but ends up using highly inflammatory and false statistics:

"According to Spay USA, a single unspayed cat can produce through her and her offspring 11,606,077 kittens. An unspayed dog, somewhat less prodigious, can produce through her and her offspring 67,000 puppies in six years. "

A single unspayed cat can lead to 11,606,077 kittens - this is one of the most ridiculous statistics I've ever heard, and it is propaganda, plain and simple. How do I know the statistic is false? Because an unaltered feral colony can have a hundred unspayed females yet somehow not increase to 100,000,000 cats in the colony! While cats can be prolific producers in the wild, they just are not. In a perfect predator and disease free environment with unlimited food supply and premium veterinary care, sure a group of cats could grow quite large if unchecked. But we know that in the wild, groups of cats don't grow to the hundreds of millions because we'd be tripping over them just to cross the street.

And why use this piece of propaganda? It's enough that an unspayed cat can have just one litter of homeless kittens that could get turned in to a shelter, why throw in the sensational scare tactic? Wheeler should have just left well enough alone and stayed away from the unsubstantiated claim of Spay USA.