CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The city of Kingsville is tackling the overpopulation of stray cats with a fairly new program for the city that catches those outdoor cats, spays or neuters them and then releases them back into the neighborhood where they were found.
The stray animal population often overcrowds the Kingsville Animal Shelter, but the catch and release program is allowing staff a way to free up their kennels while helping slow down the growing population of outdoor cats.
One Kingsville resident, David Soto, has seen a need for the program.
"One night I counted 16 cats all in these two houses around here," Soto said.
City of Kingsville Health Director, Emilio Garcia, said many neighborhoods are seeing the cat colonies.
"We have our share of issues with multiple populations of cats within the community," Garcia said
He said part of the city's budget allows animal control officers to go out into neighborhoods, trap stray cats, get them fixed and release them back where they found them.
"Some people seem to like it. Some people don't, they just don't like cats, it's good for the community we put them back in the areas where they come from, that keeps them from reproducing to have more kittens," Garcia said.
He said it also helps reduce the spread of disease and keep the intake at the animals shelter low as well as their euthanasia rates.
"This past year, we did zero," Garcia said.
The catch and release program has been going on for over a year now.
In 2023, crews were able to neuter 102 cats.
So far this fiscal year, from October to now, they've treated 25 cats.
You can tell which cats have been neutered if you see one of the tips of their ears is trimmed.
"The trap and release program is done by us, we go out and set traps in the evening, we'll capture them we'll bring them in and we set up appointments with the individuals that provide us these low-cost spay/neuter surgeries and we'll take them to Corpus and bring them back whenever they get done with them," Garcia said.
He showed 3NEWS their adoption room, with almost every kennel empty except for a handful of house cats who still need loving homes.
As for the program to bring down the number of strays, Soto thinks its a great idea.
"I was part of that in my neighborhood where we had a lot of cats," Soto said. "It's gone down quite a bit, the population."
Garcia said the goal is to continue the program and seek out possible grants that can help expand it.
"We are doing different areas where people say they have cats they don't want," he said. "They can give us a call to do our best to capture them, of course, we can't bring them all in at one time."
Garcia encouraged pet owners to get their cats spayed or neutered and to take advantage of the low-cost procedures that are offered through organizations like PAAC-People Assisting Animal Control in Corpus Christi which has an outdoor cat special for $25 and accepts cats from across the area. That includes a spay or neuter, rabies vaccination, and ear clip. Again, that special is for outdoor cats that are trapped and brought in.
Last year, the organization spayed or neutered over 1,000 "community" cats.
The cat over population is not limited to just Kingsville. In Corpus Christi, officials with PAAC said the city needs about 45,000 community surgeries to get to zero growth.
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