An initiative of a couple volunteers in the community is making an impact in helping address the issue of stray and feral cats while also assisting cat guardians with low cost spay and neuter procedures.
The Buttercup Project is named in honour of Sonya Froese’s late feline companion. The initative to address the rising cat population in Morden was started up by Froese and Michelle Budz, who runs Town and Country Grooming, where Froese used to bring Buttercup.
“While we came together over Buttercup, it’s also kind of funny because Buttercup really, really hated other cats,” Froese said with a chuckle. “So the humorous part is that we get to honour her memory by reducing other cats in the area.”
Froese had been involved in supporting the trap neuter and release program of the Pembina Valley Humane Society, but she together with Budz decided to go out on their own.
“Their program was Morden specific because it was funded by city council. We wanted to be able to help people throughout the Pembina Valley region, so we went out on our own and just kind of started this last year,” she said.
“We also wanted to offer a low income, low budget spay and neuter program also,” added Budz. “We’re going to take one step at a time with that, but we need to really get this going.”
Froese feels they have gotten their initiative off to a good start.
“We just did our spay and neuter clinic just over two weekends ago, and we spayed or neutered 16 cats, got them the rabies shots … about half of them were also given the extra vaccines,” she noted.
Of those cats, maybe were five were rehomed.They have also been working with partners in Winnipeg.
Budz noted it makes a difference for them to have a local facility to support their efforts.
“With the Town & Country Grooming facility, we were actually able to set up our spay and neuter clinic in there, so that space is going to good use too,” she said. “We’re hoping to do this program twice a year with the spay and neuter program in spring and in fall.”
And Froese noted the potential impact in terms of the numbers of stray cats in the area.
“There are about 200 cats euthanized every single year. And before we get upset at any of the pound people for doing that, we are the reason that happens. We have not been responsible caretakers for cats, so we’re trying to reduce that and put our funds towards the spaying and neutering.”
“We see the need for the cats that are remaining to be healthy. That’s where the vaccines come in,” said Froese.
“So we’re reducing disease, just in the area even for our own cats … there are people who do let their cats wander,” she said. “So they would have lesser exposure to some of these diseases and stuff too, so it helps in that way. And it just helps to reduce the number of cats because we have such an overpopulation here.
