MEOW Now Receives Best Friends Animal Society Grant to Help Save Community Cats

St. Petersburg, FL, February 1, 2016 (Newswire.com) - “This grant project targets free-roaming community cats at serious risk of being killed if they enter shelters,” said Liz Finch, senior manager of Best Friends National Programs. “It provides a proven solution, called trap/neuter/return or TNR, to save their lives, which is in alignment with Best Friends’ determination to help Save Them All®.”

“TNR,” Finch explained, “is an alternative to the ‘trap and kill’ policies that traditionally have been employed to address an abundance of stray cats and nuisance complaint situations. Trap and kill, however, has been repeatedly proven ineffective, cost-prohibitive and publicly unpalatable.”

Humanely reducing the free-roaming cat population in Pinellas County by providing targeted TNVR, caregiver support and advocacy.

Teri Brunton, Community Outreach

In contrast to trap and kill, trap/neuter/return methods, like the ones used in the ZIP code 33714 TNVR Program,  capture homeless, free-roaming cats to sterilize, vaccinate, and then return them to their 'outdoor homes' to live out their natural lives without reproducing. It is the widely accepted, humane method of controlling the number of free-roaming cats.  

“This grant means that we can add ZIP code 33714 TNVR Program this year to our efforts to make Pinellas County a no-kill community,” said Melissa Rivard, MEOW Now’s Executive Director . “Our goal is to perform 1,500 spay/neuter surgeries in 2016. We would like to thank Best Friends Animal Society for their support in making this project a great success.”

“Every day some 9,000 animals are killed in our nation’s shelters simply because they don’t have a home. When you choose to adopt your next pet you are becoming part of the solution right here in our community,” said Rivard. “That’s why we are proud to partner with Best Friends. We really believe together we can save them all.”

About Best Friends Animal Society

Best Friends Animal Society is the only national animal welfare organization dedicated exclusively to ending the killing of dogs and cats in America's shelters. A leader in the no-kill movement, Best Friends runs the nation's largest no-kill sanctuary for companion animals, adoption centers and spay and neuter facilities in Los Angeles and Salt Lake City as well as lifesaving programs in partnership with more than 1,300 rescue groups and shelters across the country. Since its founding in 1984, Best Friends has helped reduce the number of animals killed in American shelters from 17 million per year to an estimated 4 million. By continuing to build effective initiatives that reduce the number of animals entering shelters and increase the number who find homes, Best Friends and its nationwide network of members and partners are working to Save Them All®.