Niagara County SPCA in upstate New York calls itself the “‘little shelter that could.” It has a small staff of 19, a surgical trailer for sterilizations and a big population problem.
Despite working with rescue groups and community cat caretakers, Executive Director Amy Lewis told WGRZ-TV in Buffalo that the city has 60,000 stray and feral cats compared to 50,000 people.
As long as they’re not spayed or neutered, the number of homeless cats will keep increasing, she says. “A lot of people don’t spay and neuter — there’s not low-cost, accessible spay-neuter programs for them. We do have one at the shelter, but we don’t have the resources to accommodate large numbers of animals.”
The no-kill shelter sterilizes 40 to 50 cats a week but needs an in-house surgical suite to do more. Its board hopes to expand the facility or build a new one.
