The Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society in Calgary is in the middle of a cat crisis and will be lowering adoption prices until the end of July.
In the last 17 days, AARCS has received more than 100 surrender requests — usually, that number is 50 to 60.
“We are almost double and we’re halfway through this month,” said Kelsey Scoular, cat program manager, on Wednesday.
“We’re seeing a lot of stray cats being dumped around rural properties. So farms and acreage owners are giving us a call, letting us know that there’s a new stray cat that’s shown up or a mom and kittens that have shown up that they don’t know, they’ve never seen before.”
Scoular stressed how crucial it is to have your pets spayed or neutered.
“Cats that go outside, especially in rural properties, even within the city, if they’re going outside and they’re not fixed, the females can get pregnant and in two months, you could have six or eight kittens on your doorstep,” she said.
AARCS has 350 cats — about 110 of those animals are currently in foster care and are not available for adoption yet.
To resolve the overcrowding, AARCS is reducing the adoption fee to $25 for cats who are over six months old until July 31. That’s down from the regular $100.
You can peruse cats and apply online.
If you cannot adopt, you can provide foster care, play with the cats at AARCS or donate food, litter and money.