When it comes to spay/neuter rates for cats, owner income tells the story

A study conducted by Harris Interactive for Alley Cat Allies came up with some interesting data. To start with, nearly all pets cats in America -- more than 80 percent -- are already spayed and neutered. And the ones that aren't didn't have the misfortune of being owned by deadbeat, idiotic, irresponsible or callous people. No, they're owned by poor people.



In fact, the single most influential predictor of whether or not a cat is altered is the income level of his or her owner.

Eighty percent of cats in U.S. households are neutered, according to a new, nationally representative study conducted by Alley Cat Allies and published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Association, a leading peer-reviewed scientific journal.



The study, “Population characteristics and neuter status of cats living in households in the United States,” found that family income was the single strongest predictor of whether pet cats living in households are neutered. Over 90% of cats in households earning $35,000 or more per year were neutered, compared to 51% of cats in households earning less than $35,000.

As the study points out, it's not pet cats (the only ones who would be affected by a mandatory spay/neuter law) who aren't being altered; it's unowned strays. And cats represent the largest group of animals being killed in shelters.



So if you really want to cut down on shelter deaths, how about proposing a law funding  trap-neuter-release (TNR) programs and mandatory assistance to low income pet owners to go along with this obsession with mandatory spay/neuter laws. Anyone? Bueller?



Read more here from Alley Cat Allies -- and graphs? Dey haz them.

Comments

[Pai]

Yay, I love graphs! Great study there, hopefully this data will improve community strategies towards feral cats.

[puppynerd]

Mary: Probably plenty - lots of shelter cats or strays are 'one strike' cats. Plenty of higher income homes get cats of that sort. We've had four female cats, one of whom had a litter before we got her. That's pretty close to your 20%. (Too hard to tell whether the five males had done anything, but they were all pretty young, so it's unlikely)



A better question is what is the makeup of that 4%. How many are breeding unsupervised with the neighbors and end up with some 'strikes' that way, how many are purebreds intended for breeding, how many have a medical reason for not being fixed (or aren't old enough yet) but never reproduce anyway.



But when you phrase it that way, you realize it would still be more useful to look at the other 14%.

[Rosemary Rodd]

Maybe the other interesting thing that comes out of this is that 90% neutering is roughly the point at which the cat population becomes stable with natural deaths balancing births.



Offer enough low-cost or free spay/neuter and it looks as though the pet keeping population will voluntarily keep the pet population in balance.

[Mary Mary]

Oh I just love research and data, whoo!



I remember seeing somewhere that, of the 80% of cats that are spayed, 20% have had at least one litter. I wonder how many of those "one strike" cats are in the higher income homes.



Just another data point.