It’s not uncommon to see undomesticated cats roaming the city, but thanks to some volunteers, many of them have been fixed in order to relieve the burden that a high population of feral cats can have on the community. Members of the Winnemucca City Council voted unanimously at the May 10 meeting to allow the volunteers the continued use of a facility at Sage Heights and to meet 100 percent of the spay and neuter costs for the local feral cats only. Councilman Jim Billingsley absent.
According to volunteers, they started trapping feral cats to get them spayed and neutered in 2017. Since then, they have helped fix approximately 99 cats using the TNR—trap-neuter-return— approach to reduce the feral cat population. This process humanely traps the cats, has them spayed or neutered, fully vaccinated, and their ears are tipped, which is the universal sign that a cat has been fixed. The sterilized cats are then returned to where they were trapped.
Volunteers told the council that for every female cat that is fixed, you save the expense of 16 kittens on average, per year.
The program also promotes the safety of many domestic cats, which might be enticed to wander from home in order to mate with a feral, unfixed cat, they added.
Covering 100 percent of the spay/neuter expenses for the feral cats will cost the city approximately $3,000 more per year, according to the City Manager, Alicia Heiser, but, as Mayor Rich Stone added, “If you spay and neuter them, the colonies don’t grow,” so the expense will gradually decrease as the program persists.
The city and the county currently have a cost-share agreement in which each pays half of the expenses for the spay/neuter program. The city and the county both offer vouchers to anyone who has their domesticated cat or dog spayed or neutered at the vet. Each pays half of the total cost, which is $150 for females and $80 for males, which can be extremely helpful to homes that have pets, but do not want the financial burden of puppies or kittens. The vouchers are available at the local police department for those that live within city limits or at the sheriff’s department for those that live outside of city limits and all that is required is a receipt from the vet.