I grew up around cats, including feral/stray felines, and developed a life-long appreciation and affection for cats in general. As a young boy, finding them slaughtered the first thing in the morning was quite traumatizing. They were lost to larger predators — perhaps even a cat-hating human. I knew about a few guys willing to procure sick satisfaction from torturing to death those naively-trusting thus likely sweet-natured cats whose owners had allowed to wander the neighborhood, even at night.

In the decades since, I’ve found that, along with individual people, society collectively can also be cruel toward felines. … In Surrey, B.C., there was an estimated 36,000 feral/homeless cats, very many of which suffer severe malnourishment, debilitating injury and/or infection. That number was about six years ago. I was informed four years later by the local cat charity that, if anything, their “numbers would have increased, not decreased” since then.

Yet that municipal government, as well as some aware yet uncaring residents, did little or nothing to help with the local non-profit trap/neuter/release program, regardless of its (and others’) documented success in reducing the needlessly great suffering.

The Surrey Community Cat Foundation’s TNR program is/was the only charity to which I’ve ever donated, in no small part because of the plentiful human callousness towards the plight of those cats and the countless others elsewhere. I was greatly saddened when told by that non-profit via email that, “Our TNR program is not operating. There are no volunteers that are interested in trapping and there is no place to recover the cats after surgery until they can be returned to a site with a feeding station. …”

At about the same time, I read in the local news that 59 kittens and cats had been rescued from a feces-filled home. While one local newspaper, The Peace Arch News, rightfully deemed this worthy of frontpage space, The Surrey Now Leader didn’t give these afflicted animals any newsprint at all. Were these felines and their suffering worth so little?

Meantime, domesticated cats offer reciprocally healthy relationships — many cat lovers describe them as somewhat symbiotic — particularly for those suffering physical and/or mental illness. Yet, human apathy, the throwaway mentality/culture and even a bit of public hostility toward cats typically result in population explosions thus their inevitable neglect and suffering, including severe illness and starvation. With the mindset of feline disposability, it might be: ‘Oh, there’s a lot more whence they came’.

Thus, only when their over-populations are greatly reduced in number through consistent (and publicly funded when necessary) spay/neuter programs, might these beautiful animals’ potentially soothing, even therapeutic, presence be truly appreciated rather than taken for granted, if not even resented. …

All of the above basically translate into a whole bunch more feline suffering that has long been already needlessly too high. Hopefully goodhearted, humane people will stand up to do something kind and compassionate for these beautiful animals in great need.