A friend of mine has beautiful cats. She has recently adopted two new cats from her veterinarian --- a young mother cat and her kitten. The other day when I was at her house, adoring her new family members, I noticed that the very tip of the mother cat's right ear was missing. My friend told me that it was on purpose. The mother cat was originally a "stray" , and had been taken care of by an organization called "Alley Cat Advocates." This group is dedicated to helping reduce cat overpopulation in the United States in a unique way. They capture stray cats, neuter/spay them, do health check-ups, and release them back to the original spots where they were found. To avoid picking up the same cat twice, they crop the very tip of cats' right ears after they are neutered/spayed.

This is a very proactive way of dealing with cats' overpopulation, considering the fact that many cats and kittens who are brought into humane societies and shelters may end up being euthanized -- somtimes in as little as five days or so. Organizations like "Alley Cat Advocates" try to stop this from happening by "nipping unwanted stray cat pregnancies in the bud".

This approach helps us look at the present cats' overpopulation from a new angle --- "how does this cat overpopulation start in the first place?" Otherwise, we would end up focusing only on dealing with the consequences, which is on-going euthanasia of cats. We'd like to put this to an end.