This just shows how desperate the volunteers are to get all the cats spayed and neuter in all areas of Southern California. Every city should have a CCP voucher program and be partnered with a clinic accepting them. The over population of community cats and euthanasia in the shelters is a problem in more areas than just LA city. Step it up California! We need more funding for these cats and TNR programs!
Absolutely, Alexis! The need for more CCP voucher programs and clinics across Southern California is clear. Volunteers are working tirelessly, but without proper funding and oversight, the problem keeps growing. California must step up and support TNR efforts before more cats—and communities—pay the price!
Thirty-five years ago I helped to direct the first large-scale controlled & documented neuter/vaccinate/return program in the U.S., at eight locations in northern Fairfield County, Connecticut. It was introduced as a rabies control project, meant to prevent feral cats and their kittens from becoming infected by the mid-Atlantic raccoon rabies pandemic, which had just spread into the project area. The very first thing I did was to map the locations to ascertain the probable range of the cats in each colony and the raccoons they might encounter. Step #2 was to get as good an estimate as possible from volunteers & neighbors of the number of cats to be caught & fixed.
Friends of Animals supplied about 100 spay/neuter vouchers, which were less than a third as many as were needed, but were enough to make a good start. These were used to try to get the best possible coverage of the target areas. After that, the costs were covered by private donations, mostly through coin cans. I kicked in my entire salary for a couple of months. Throughout, the estimated range of every cat was plotted on a map. So was the estimated range of every dead or confirmed rabid raccoon found by animal control. (I picked up three myself.) By the end of the project, we could accurately state that no rabid outdoor cat had turned up in any of the areas that were part of the project, even though there was 100% overlap with the ranges of rabid raccoons. (One indoor cat, not part of the project, did escape outside, fight with a rabid raccoon, and require euthanasia.)
This experience raises the question, who was mapping the Los Angeles project, & if no one was doing it, why not? Neuter/return projects are, recognize it or not, a branch of wildlife management, & wildlife management is done with maps. Use of mapping is relatively easy, & is the surefire way to ensure that each s/n voucher is being used in a specific area with a specific cat colony, where results should be verifiable, if anyone is really paying attention.
Fascinating insights, Merritt and Beth! Your meticulous mapping approach is exactly the kind of accountability and strategic planning that LA’s CCP desperately needs. Tracking colonies and voucher use should be standard practice—without it, resources are squandered and outcomes are unverifiable. Thank you for sharing this history and for highlighting a crucial missing piece in LAAS' oversight!
History and science are always my best teachers. One great truth is that from a bacteria to a human a scarcity of resources create competition and that competition has both positive and negative outcomes.
LAAS did an enviromental impact report estimating 1M stray cats in the city of LA. The Times estimates 1M-3M but who's counting at this point. If you accept the lowest number then the CCP Program is designed to fix 2% of the population annually.
A great program but a bit of a gap. Solution: Lobby an underfunded city and an overfunded handful of national organizations (you know who you are) to increase voucher funding along with more affordable/accessible/available low cost clinics.
But what has happened in the first 24 hours after the CCP program announced they would "ration" vouchers is the negative consequences of the idea of a "shortage" I have received 6 texts/emails/calls from trappers expressing their concern about other trappers/rescues/people using "our vouchers" The CCP program requires 6 signed forms and submission of a DL or similar ID with your LA address. Most clinics have their own requirements that vary but it's not an open door policy and clinics are frontline, they know who they are dealing with. The final roadblock, which overarches the others, is getting appointments to use vouchers. There is also an imagined fairy tale world of motes and border crossings. Did you trap in Inglewood or Southgate, Compton or Hawthorne. Two are county, two are city. They are separated by a stop sign, cats are notorious for ignoring laws and I am hard pressed to criticize amazing people doing amazing volunteer work because they don't carry a surveyor's map.
The city has asked a brave, tiny group of special forces to go into dodgy parts of town, late at night to do a job that should be a city responsibility. OK. They have funded a program to underwrite what the volunteers do. OK. Yay! Let's now lobby Neighborhood Councils, City Councils and the Mayor's office for an expansion of the underwriting because there is very little additional oversite you can do. Just don't ask today. Kenneth Mejia just announced sales tax revenues are down.
In the meantime I just picked up 100 large, lite weight, canvas dog crates that are great for
rescues/fosters/shelters. You can't sell them but you can have them. You can find me at
The past few articles you have posted have led me to believe that labeling these kinds of problems as “mismanagement” are not only unfair but is not entirely accurate.
I’m a nonprofit COO/executive director and the kinds of issues you are talking about go back to operational procedures, policy, and workflow as the source of the issue. In the LA cats case, they are experiencing what other low cost or subsidized spay neuter services are experiencing, which are non-local rescues and groups taking advantage of the services to accomplish what they need to, whether that be place a dog or TNR.
The problem requires experienced operations professionals at the helm. People who are good at complex operations with low margins are hard to find. It was easy for me to read a few sentences into the problem and know that they need a screening process. But that’s what I do for a living.
These types of organizations typically can’t or won’t pay for operations chops and they screen for purity of motivation instead. It’s not malicious, hence why I’m saying calling it mismanagement makes it more negative than it needs to be. Shelters and orgs need to be educated about the essential nature of hiring ops professionals to prevent things just like this.
They may have a COO or Ops Director but turnover is high. They need to hire from safety net healthcare. But that also means they will need to pay and not underpay because the person’s dedication to the mission should be enough. It is not.
Many of the issues you discuss, in my opinion, are the result of poor operational strategy and a lack of knowledge about how to implement screenings. It is very hard to run a nonprofit, even harder in the current environment, and triple hard when society doesn’t value what you are doing.
Pay for someone who does know, somehow. That’s the only solution I can see.
This just shows how desperate the volunteers are to get all the cats spayed and neuter in all areas of Southern California. Every city should have a CCP voucher program and be partnered with a clinic accepting them. The over population of community cats and euthanasia in the shelters is a problem in more areas than just LA city. Step it up California! We need more funding for these cats and TNR programs!
Absolutely, Alexis! The need for more CCP voucher programs and clinics across Southern California is clear. Volunteers are working tirelessly, but without proper funding and oversight, the problem keeps growing. California must step up and support TNR efforts before more cats—and communities—pay the price!
Thirty-five years ago I helped to direct the first large-scale controlled & documented neuter/vaccinate/return program in the U.S., at eight locations in northern Fairfield County, Connecticut. It was introduced as a rabies control project, meant to prevent feral cats and their kittens from becoming infected by the mid-Atlantic raccoon rabies pandemic, which had just spread into the project area. The very first thing I did was to map the locations to ascertain the probable range of the cats in each colony and the raccoons they might encounter. Step #2 was to get as good an estimate as possible from volunteers & neighbors of the number of cats to be caught & fixed.
Friends of Animals supplied about 100 spay/neuter vouchers, which were less than a third as many as were needed, but were enough to make a good start. These were used to try to get the best possible coverage of the target areas. After that, the costs were covered by private donations, mostly through coin cans. I kicked in my entire salary for a couple of months. Throughout, the estimated range of every cat was plotted on a map. So was the estimated range of every dead or confirmed rabid raccoon found by animal control. (I picked up three myself.) By the end of the project, we could accurately state that no rabid outdoor cat had turned up in any of the areas that were part of the project, even though there was 100% overlap with the ranges of rabid raccoons. (One indoor cat, not part of the project, did escape outside, fight with a rabid raccoon, and require euthanasia.)
This experience raises the question, who was mapping the Los Angeles project, & if no one was doing it, why not? Neuter/return projects are, recognize it or not, a branch of wildlife management, & wildlife management is done with maps. Use of mapping is relatively easy, & is the surefire way to ensure that each s/n voucher is being used in a specific area with a specific cat colony, where results should be verifiable, if anyone is really paying attention.
Fascinating insights, Merritt and Beth! Your meticulous mapping approach is exactly the kind of accountability and strategic planning that LA’s CCP desperately needs. Tracking colonies and voucher use should be standard practice—without it, resources are squandered and outcomes are unverifiable. Thank you for sharing this history and for highlighting a crucial missing piece in LAAS' oversight!
History and science are always my best teachers. One great truth is that from a bacteria to a human a scarcity of resources create competition and that competition has both positive and negative outcomes.
LAAS did an enviromental impact report estimating 1M stray cats in the city of LA. The Times estimates 1M-3M but who's counting at this point. If you accept the lowest number then the CCP Program is designed to fix 2% of the population annually.
A great program but a bit of a gap. Solution: Lobby an underfunded city and an overfunded handful of national organizations (you know who you are) to increase voucher funding along with more affordable/accessible/available low cost clinics.
But what has happened in the first 24 hours after the CCP program announced they would "ration" vouchers is the negative consequences of the idea of a "shortage" I have received 6 texts/emails/calls from trappers expressing their concern about other trappers/rescues/people using "our vouchers" The CCP program requires 6 signed forms and submission of a DL or similar ID with your LA address. Most clinics have their own requirements that vary but it's not an open door policy and clinics are frontline, they know who they are dealing with. The final roadblock, which overarches the others, is getting appointments to use vouchers. There is also an imagined fairy tale world of motes and border crossings. Did you trap in Inglewood or Southgate, Compton or Hawthorne. Two are county, two are city. They are separated by a stop sign, cats are notorious for ignoring laws and I am hard pressed to criticize amazing people doing amazing volunteer work because they don't carry a surveyor's map.
The city has asked a brave, tiny group of special forces to go into dodgy parts of town, late at night to do a job that should be a city responsibility. OK. They have funded a program to underwrite what the volunteers do. OK. Yay! Let's now lobby Neighborhood Councils, City Councils and the Mayor's office for an expansion of the underwriting because there is very little additional oversite you can do. Just don't ask today. Kenneth Mejia just announced sales tax revenues are down.
In the meantime I just picked up 100 large, lite weight, canvas dog crates that are great for
rescues/fosters/shelters. You can't sell them but you can have them. You can find me at
Kelly@TheAnimalRescueAlliance.org We don't hoard resources here.
https://voiceofoc.org/2025/03/orange-county-considers-overhauling-animal-shelter-operations/
The past few articles you have posted have led me to believe that labeling these kinds of problems as “mismanagement” are not only unfair but is not entirely accurate.
I’m a nonprofit COO/executive director and the kinds of issues you are talking about go back to operational procedures, policy, and workflow as the source of the issue. In the LA cats case, they are experiencing what other low cost or subsidized spay neuter services are experiencing, which are non-local rescues and groups taking advantage of the services to accomplish what they need to, whether that be place a dog or TNR.
The problem requires experienced operations professionals at the helm. People who are good at complex operations with low margins are hard to find. It was easy for me to read a few sentences into the problem and know that they need a screening process. But that’s what I do for a living.
These types of organizations typically can’t or won’t pay for operations chops and they screen for purity of motivation instead. It’s not malicious, hence why I’m saying calling it mismanagement makes it more negative than it needs to be. Shelters and orgs need to be educated about the essential nature of hiring ops professionals to prevent things just like this.
They may have a COO or Ops Director but turnover is high. They need to hire from safety net healthcare. But that also means they will need to pay and not underpay because the person’s dedication to the mission should be enough. It is not.
Many of the issues you discuss, in my opinion, are the result of poor operational strategy and a lack of knowledge about how to implement screenings. It is very hard to run a nonprofit, even harder in the current environment, and triple hard when society doesn’t value what you are doing.
Pay for someone who does know, somehow. That’s the only solution I can see.