NYC Eartips: Spring 2010

Conducting Spay/Neuter Sundays at the ASPCA

Reprinted from ASPCA Action (Fall 2009)

The ASPCA had a goal of more than 30,000 spay/neuter surgeries in 2009, nearly 8,000 more than it performed the previous year. The addition in January 2009 of the fifth ASPCA Mobile Spay/Neuter Clinic — which has increased the program's capacity by 6,000 surgeries annually — accounted for most of that increase. But the organization expects to actually surpass its goal because it has extended the reach of its mobile spay/neuter services to the ASPCA Bergh Memorial Animal Hospital. Since September 2008, the ASPCA has conducted spay/neuter surgery clinics at Bergh on the second Sunday of each month, when the hospital is closed to the public. The revolutionary program, administered by a small staff from the Mobile Spay/Neuter Clinics, alters feral cats on a trap/neuter/return (TNR) basis, and has been "a great success," according to Aimee Christian, Senior Director of ASPCA Mobile Spay/Neuter Clinics.

From September 2008 through September 2009, more than 1,200 feral cats were sterilized on Sundays at Bergh, leading the ASPCA to plan a permanent spay/neuter facility for rescue organizations, shelters, TNR groups, and others. The addition of the new facility will greatly increase the ASPCA's annual spay/neuter surgery capacity — and that will be a giant leap forward in the organization's fight to end the needless euthanasia of animals. For more information about where to access low-cost spay/neuter programs in your community, please go to the ASPCA's searchable Free and Low-Cost Spay/Neuter Database.

"So many animals are euthanized in shelters across the country due to a simple problem: a lack of space," says Christian. "Unfortunately, people don't always make the connection between their own pets' offspring and the animals that are being euthanized. Spay/neuter procedures are the obvious solution, because they nip the problem in the bud."