Volunteers work assembly-line style to care for feral cats at a Catnippers spay/neuter clinic. |
Best Friends’ Catnippers began with a pair of dedicated cat lovers in Los Angeles, Karn Myers and Mark Dodge. They partnered with Best Friends Animal Society of Utah in October 1999 to found Catnippers. Today, the couple and a team of dedicated volunteers spay and neuter an average of 1,800 cats a year. In late 2006, the organization altered its 10,000th cat.
Catnippers works with Los Angeles-area feral cat caregivers to set up a spay/neuter clinic every other month in a local veterinary clinic. The clinic donates its facility for the day, and volunteers prepare to examine, prep, groom, vaccinate and care for the parade of cats that come. A typical spay/neuter day will see 120 cats receive spay/neuter surgery.
Year-round, Catnippers provides free spay/neuter surgery vouchers to feral cat caregivers, distributing nearly 100 vouchers each month. Myers estimates that by spaying and neutering 120 cats each month, Catnippers helps prevent the birth of 384,000 unwanted kittens.
For more information about Catnippers, visit the group’s website.