Robinson’s Rescue, a Shreveport nonprofit organization that offers low-cost spay/neuter surgeries for cats and dogs, has made an extra push this week to fix feral cats.
Veterinarian Andrea Master Everson has sterilized 50 feral cats this week in an effort to bust colonies that have ballooned across the city. One feral cat she points to in a cage came from a group congregating behind Hickory Stick restaurant.
“There’s huge colonies. Sometimes, outside of restaurants and shopping malls you’ll see tons of cats. In neighborhoods, you’ll have neighbors complaining of screaming cats during the night. Once they’re spayed/neutered that all ends and eventually the colonies dwindle out,” Master Everson said.
Over the past six years, Robinson’s Rescue has performed 30,000 spay/neuter surgeries. Master Everson has calluses on her hands from using the same surgical instruments all day. She leads a tight-knit group of vet techs and volunteers in a swift, streamlined process performing about 30 surgeries daily. Her organization rents out traps and offers reduced pricing for feral cat procedures.
“If they are interested in getting them to be spay/neutered, yes, start feeding them on a regular basis so it’s easier to trap. But if they do not want to have the 20 cats, then the more you feed them the more they’re going to show up. So, it really depends on how active the citizen wants to be,” Everson said.
Robinson’s Rescue promotes the trap-neuter-return philosophy whereby feral cats are returned to the same location where they were trapped following the sterilization procedure and an ear tip that signifies they’ve been fixed.
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