Right on Ed, Sean Tyson, Merritt and Beth Clifton, Speaking for Spot, Stacy Shores, Elyse Cregar, Renee W2, and all. Please see/share our research from Captain Rob Balsamo, Captain Dan Hanley, Amber Quitno, Prof. Tony Martin, Prof. Graeme MacQueen, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, and others and help us improve it if you can. Thank you!
Every mention of "rescuer" in this excellent column could be replaced by "feeder" and be equally true––or even more so. Rescuers often begin as feeders of street animals, then escalate their activity to rescue. Some feeders also escalate into neuter/return, but too many don't, and many neuter/return practitioners retire into just feeding. Along the way, there seems to be no recognition whatever of an ecological reality: if an animal population exists somewhere, that population already has an adequate food source to sustain itself and sustain reproduction at least equivalent to mortality. Excessive food supply equals more successful reproduction and dispersal. This is all Ecology 1-A, but feeding seems to proceed from deep instinctive & emotional responses that are practically impossible to counter with appeals to intellect. Half a century has passed since Carol Haspell & Robert Calhoun documented that feeders habitually provide homeless cats with a third more food than they actually need, thereby stimulating reproduction & proliferation of the rodents the cats would otherwise control, but the importance of this finding has yet to be assimilated by the animal care & control community. Meanwhile, if anyone cares to look closely, practically every objection anyone raises to neuter/return has to do with feeding: attracting more cats & rodents, concentrated odors & poop, even killing birds, since unfed cats hunt nocturnal rodents by night, sleeping by day, while fed cats sleep at night and hunt relatively hard-to-catch birds for sport by day. The same dynamic applies to feeding street dogs in India: feeding tends to concentrate dogs in packs, who then become aggressive and dangerous to passers-by, instead of dispersing to hunt rats and scavenge, as dogs did harmlessly for thousands of years before increasing affluence and food abundance made dog-feeding a common pastime. Right around the world, most human conflicts with animals could be eliminated just by observing one simple rule: don't feed the wildlife. A person should feed the animals he/she takes full responsibility for; otherwise, don't habituate any animal to being fed instead of finding food as the animal otherwise would, whether cat, coyote, dog, pigeon, leopard or Bengal tiger, who by the way have in some Indian cities developed the habit of sneaking in to hunt the dogs concentrated in feeding locales, instead of hunting much harder to catch chital, blackbuck, and sambar.
Thank you, Merritt and Beth. As always, your contribution adds essential ecological depth to the conversation. The feeder-to-rescuer pipeline—and the unintended consequences of well-intentioned feeding—deserves much more attention. Your historical context underscores just how crucial it is to align our compassion with ecological realities. Grateful for your ongoing insights and support.
This article should be distributed nationwide, as it captures the deep psychological factors financialized by the national animal welfare orgs who have dismissed spay/neuter programs.
They understand the powerful emotions of rescuing animals translates into donations, expansive profitable merchandise/services “making the community the shelter" vs the abstract reproduction prevention of animals never born that will never need rescue.
But now inadequately funded communities and shelters are in overpopulation crisis with exhausted volunteers. rescuers, fosters in chronic compassion fatigue. What was once satisfying becomes depressing and overwhelming as staff/volunteers/rescuers struggle with the trauma of never-ending euthanizing of wonderful animals or animals deteriorating from shelter stress.
Best Friends, Humane World, Maddies Fund desperately try to mask the failure of “No Kill MINUS VOLUME ACCESSIBLE SPAY NEUTER” with more gimmick strategies and ever more corporate sponsored seminars and pep-rallies pretending there are remedies besides funding volume spay/neuter/vax outreach.
Best Friends et al now promote expanding transport companies for shelter/rescue over-population relief by transporting large groups of typically hard-to-adopt animals (seniors needing medical support, large unaltered breeds—NOT small, cute-friendly fluffy) to distant locations without traceable outcomes.
What community, rescue or shelter has a shortage of hard-to-adopt dogs and cats?? Obviously, this scenario is riddled with troubling implications.
For example Best Friends partner Rescue Express has a fleet of busses and tractor trailer for transporting groups of 100-300 animals currently expanding their long-distance routes.
Thank you, Carmen—this is such a thoughtful and incisive comment. You’ve articulated the crisis perfectly: emotional appeals are being leveraged at the expense of real solutions, and communities are paying the price. The disconnect between what's marketed and what's needed—volume, accessible spay/neuter—has never been more stark. I appreciate you adding your voice to this conversation. It’s time we all demand better.
Ed Boks' has put his finger on why it is so difficult for major spay/neuter programs to compete with major rescue programs vis-a-vis fundraising. These organizations have capitalized on, and gotten rich by using emotional appeals that rely on misrepresenting the effectiveness of rescue programs in alleviating pet homelessness. They have a moral obligation to provide a substantial portion of the monies they've raised to spay neuter programs. Unless they they are willing to do so, they must bear responsibility for duping a well-meaning but naive public.
20 years ago I was trained by Sacramento County Animal Services in California and Sacramento SPCA and trap neuter and return.
they provided resources education and no cost low cost spay and neuters for those of us who went out into the community and the purpose of all this was to get the cat population under control.
This is the kind of effort and leadership that is needed both on the larger non-profits in the communities and Animal Services.
They trained us not to let pregnant cats have kittens and that the mission was to get out the estimated 75,000 cats in that county alone.
When I went down to Contra Costa County to do TNR I was encountered by rescue groups that didn't want to have anything to do with it let pregnant cats have kittens, because of their egos and the need to fulfill their own self-glory it is still happening in Contra Costa County.
Every rescue that funded me treated me as if I was an enemy or had a contagious disease.
They refer to all the cats as feral therefore had no value.
I've also seen dog groups unwilling to help people with spay and neuters and only take from the shelter because the animals are already spayed and neutered.
The bizarre and experimental policies both these Large Animal welfare organizations or the cartels as I call them and local Municipal shelters have adopted have created this overpopulation.
And the elected officials who support this have actually created the broken windows syndrome in communities throughout California in regards of the lack of care and inhumanity towards domestic animals.
Large Animal welfare organizations are hoarding money and Municipal shelters are saving money.
You're right it comes from the top and what's coming from the top is what you find in your toilet.
As someone who has volunteered thousands of hours and money in curbing the domestic animal overpopulation, I too am at a loss of why the focus is not put on spay and neuters. Most fosters in adoption entities don't see the .
suffering the death and the inhumanity I see on the streets
I always say come spend the day with me no one ever does
20 years ago I tried to be involved with rescue/foster but found it to be exhausting for both my family and me. Add to that the fact that despite my best efforts I was only able to help a handful of animals over a period of months. Fast forward a few years and I became a devoted member of Team Prevention. My entire dedication is to getting more animals sterilized. Today I have 2 main problems with rescue organizations in my community: the resistance to pregnant spays on stray cats and dogs, and the placement of intact kittens and puppies. This is radical departure from the mindset of just a decade ago and it is very, very damaging to what we are trying to accomplish.
Right on Ed, Sean Tyson, Merritt and Beth Clifton, Speaking for Spot, Stacy Shores, Elyse Cregar, Renee W2, and all. Please see/share our research from Captain Rob Balsamo, Captain Dan Hanley, Amber Quitno, Prof. Tony Martin, Prof. Graeme MacQueen, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, and others and help us improve it if you can. Thank you!
https://michaelatkinson.substack.com/
Sincerely,
Michael
🦖
Every mention of "rescuer" in this excellent column could be replaced by "feeder" and be equally true––or even more so. Rescuers often begin as feeders of street animals, then escalate their activity to rescue. Some feeders also escalate into neuter/return, but too many don't, and many neuter/return practitioners retire into just feeding. Along the way, there seems to be no recognition whatever of an ecological reality: if an animal population exists somewhere, that population already has an adequate food source to sustain itself and sustain reproduction at least equivalent to mortality. Excessive food supply equals more successful reproduction and dispersal. This is all Ecology 1-A, but feeding seems to proceed from deep instinctive & emotional responses that are practically impossible to counter with appeals to intellect. Half a century has passed since Carol Haspell & Robert Calhoun documented that feeders habitually provide homeless cats with a third more food than they actually need, thereby stimulating reproduction & proliferation of the rodents the cats would otherwise control, but the importance of this finding has yet to be assimilated by the animal care & control community. Meanwhile, if anyone cares to look closely, practically every objection anyone raises to neuter/return has to do with feeding: attracting more cats & rodents, concentrated odors & poop, even killing birds, since unfed cats hunt nocturnal rodents by night, sleeping by day, while fed cats sleep at night and hunt relatively hard-to-catch birds for sport by day. The same dynamic applies to feeding street dogs in India: feeding tends to concentrate dogs in packs, who then become aggressive and dangerous to passers-by, instead of dispersing to hunt rats and scavenge, as dogs did harmlessly for thousands of years before increasing affluence and food abundance made dog-feeding a common pastime. Right around the world, most human conflicts with animals could be eliminated just by observing one simple rule: don't feed the wildlife. A person should feed the animals he/she takes full responsibility for; otherwise, don't habituate any animal to being fed instead of finding food as the animal otherwise would, whether cat, coyote, dog, pigeon, leopard or Bengal tiger, who by the way have in some Indian cities developed the habit of sneaking in to hunt the dogs concentrated in feeding locales, instead of hunting much harder to catch chital, blackbuck, and sambar.
Thank you, Merritt and Beth. As always, your contribution adds essential ecological depth to the conversation. The feeder-to-rescuer pipeline—and the unintended consequences of well-intentioned feeding—deserves much more attention. Your historical context underscores just how crucial it is to align our compassion with ecological realities. Grateful for your ongoing insights and support.
This article should be distributed nationwide, as it captures the deep psychological factors financialized by the national animal welfare orgs who have dismissed spay/neuter programs.
They understand the powerful emotions of rescuing animals translates into donations, expansive profitable merchandise/services “making the community the shelter" vs the abstract reproduction prevention of animals never born that will never need rescue.
But now inadequately funded communities and shelters are in overpopulation crisis with exhausted volunteers. rescuers, fosters in chronic compassion fatigue. What was once satisfying becomes depressing and overwhelming as staff/volunteers/rescuers struggle with the trauma of never-ending euthanizing of wonderful animals or animals deteriorating from shelter stress.
Best Friends, Humane World, Maddies Fund desperately try to mask the failure of “No Kill MINUS VOLUME ACCESSIBLE SPAY NEUTER” with more gimmick strategies and ever more corporate sponsored seminars and pep-rallies pretending there are remedies besides funding volume spay/neuter/vax outreach.
Best Friends et al now promote expanding transport companies for shelter/rescue over-population relief by transporting large groups of typically hard-to-adopt animals (seniors needing medical support, large unaltered breeds—NOT small, cute-friendly fluffy) to distant locations without traceable outcomes.
What community, rescue or shelter has a shortage of hard-to-adopt dogs and cats?? Obviously, this scenario is riddled with troubling implications.
For example Best Friends partner Rescue Express has a fleet of busses and tractor trailer for transporting groups of 100-300 animals currently expanding their long-distance routes.
https://rescueexpress.org/service-overview/
Thank you, Carmen—this is such a thoughtful and incisive comment. You’ve articulated the crisis perfectly: emotional appeals are being leveraged at the expense of real solutions, and communities are paying the price. The disconnect between what's marketed and what's needed—volume, accessible spay/neuter—has never been more stark. I appreciate you adding your voice to this conversation. It’s time we all demand better.
Ed Boks' has put his finger on why it is so difficult for major spay/neuter programs to compete with major rescue programs vis-a-vis fundraising. These organizations have capitalized on, and gotten rich by using emotional appeals that rely on misrepresenting the effectiveness of rescue programs in alleviating pet homelessness. They have a moral obligation to provide a substantial portion of the monies they've raised to spay neuter programs. Unless they they are willing to do so, they must bear responsibility for duping a well-meaning but naive public.
20 years ago I was trained by Sacramento County Animal Services in California and Sacramento SPCA and trap neuter and return.
they provided resources education and no cost low cost spay and neuters for those of us who went out into the community and the purpose of all this was to get the cat population under control.
This is the kind of effort and leadership that is needed both on the larger non-profits in the communities and Animal Services.
They trained us not to let pregnant cats have kittens and that the mission was to get out the estimated 75,000 cats in that county alone.
When I went down to Contra Costa County to do TNR I was encountered by rescue groups that didn't want to have anything to do with it let pregnant cats have kittens, because of their egos and the need to fulfill their own self-glory it is still happening in Contra Costa County.
Every rescue that funded me treated me as if I was an enemy or had a contagious disease.
They refer to all the cats as feral therefore had no value.
I've also seen dog groups unwilling to help people with spay and neuters and only take from the shelter because the animals are already spayed and neutered.
The bizarre and experimental policies both these Large Animal welfare organizations or the cartels as I call them and local Municipal shelters have adopted have created this overpopulation.
And the elected officials who support this have actually created the broken windows syndrome in communities throughout California in regards of the lack of care and inhumanity towards domestic animals.
Large Animal welfare organizations are hoarding money and Municipal shelters are saving money.
You're right it comes from the top and what's coming from the top is what you find in your toilet.
As someone who has volunteered thousands of hours and money in curbing the domestic animal overpopulation, I too am at a loss of why the focus is not put on spay and neuters. Most fosters in adoption entities don't see the .
suffering the death and the inhumanity I see on the streets
I always say come spend the day with me no one ever does
20 years ago I tried to be involved with rescue/foster but found it to be exhausting for both my family and me. Add to that the fact that despite my best efforts I was only able to help a handful of animals over a period of months. Fast forward a few years and I became a devoted member of Team Prevention. My entire dedication is to getting more animals sterilized. Today I have 2 main problems with rescue organizations in my community: the resistance to pregnant spays on stray cats and dogs, and the placement of intact kittens and puppies. This is radical departure from the mindset of just a decade ago and it is very, very damaging to what we are trying to accomplish.