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Press Release
For Immediate Release: OCTOBER 12, 2009
Contact: ELIZABETH PAROWSKI, eparowski@alleycat.org or 240-482-1984; FRANCIE ISRAELI, fisraeli@johnadams.com or 202-207-1134
ALLEY CAT ALLIES GRANTS $10,000 TO NEUTER CATS IN
NEW ORLEANS
SpayMart’s Neuter Scooter celebrates 10th anniversary with goal of 2,000 cats in October
BETHESDA, MD — Alley Cat Allies, the national advocate for stray and feral cats, announced it
has granted $10,000 to SpayMart of Greater New Orleans for the 10th anniversary of the Neuter
Scooter Campaign. The program offers spay and neuter services for feral cats for a $10 co-pay per
cat during the month of October. Ten clinics in the Greater New Orleans area are participating.
(For more information, see http://www.spaynow.net/neuter_scooter.htm.)
“We are pleased to offer this grant to SpayMart, an important partner in our Every Kitty – Every
City program to help cats in Greater New Orleans,” said Becky Robinson, president of Alley Cat
Allies.
The Neuter Scooter campaign is held each year in October to mark National Feral Cat Day,
October 16, the annual kickoff for Alley Cat Allies’ national educational campaign about stray and
feral cats. National Feral Cat Day is observed nationally by local groups and individuals, who hold
fundraisers, spay/neuter clinics and adoption events throughout the month of October.
“Feral cats are members of the domestic cat species like pet cat cats, but they are not ‘snugglers.’
They will never be lapcats, and they can’t be adopted. Their home is the outdoors, where they live
healthy and content lives,” said Robinson. “Spay or neuter, as part of a Trap-Neuter-Return
program, is the best course of action for feral cats. It improves their lives by ending the cycle of
breeding, it stabilizes the population, and it makes the cats better neighbors by ending behaviors
associated with mating, like yowling and roaming.”
Trap-Neuter-Return, practiced in many communities and by caring individuals across the country,
involves humanely trapping feral cats, taking them to clinics to be neutered and vaccinated for
rabies, and returning the cats to their colonies.
Robinson noted that traditional approaches for feral cats – such as catch and kill or attempts to
relocate – are inhumane and costly, and do not work because of a phenomenon known as the
vacuum effect, in which intact cats who evade capture continue the breeding cycle.
For more information about National Feral Cat Day, visit www.alleycat.org/NFCD.
For more information about Every Kitty – Every City, visit www.alleycat.org/NewOrleans
For more information about Neuter Scooter, visit http://www.spaynow.net/neuter_scooter.htm.
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About Alley Cat Allies
Alley Cat Allies is the nation’s leading advocate for stray and feral cats. Their website is www.alleycat.org.
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