Purrington Post: 2017 in Review, Cupcakes for Kittens and more

2017 in Review

Every January we take a look back at the year just ended, and try to find the good, the bad and the absolutely horrible to share with you. This year is much the same, except that we have some lovely new tools to help us figure out what went right and what didn't. For several years now we have been using a program called Animal Shelter Manager to keep track of the critters in our care. It's always been a great program, but now it's amazing. The developers have added in a lot of reporting functions that make year end analysis a whole lot easier. So, without further ado, the good, the bad and the atrocious from 2017.

The Good

1. Dr. Keri. We have been blessed with a wonderful relationship with Dr. Keri Hudson Reykdal. Last May Keri started bringing her mobile veterinary clinic to our adoption centre, and doing all of our cat care on site. This has saved untold hours of travel time to and from clinics, and makes sure that all of our cats get the best care, in the least stressful way. Of course, having Dr. Keri on site also got us a feature in one episode of her television show, Dr. Keri: Prairie Vet, and Binky, one of our tiny bottle babies, is featured in the ongoing advertising for the program. If you haven't seen the show, you can watch online at animalplanet.ca (you must have a cable subscription to Animal Planet). New episodes can be seen Sundays at 8 pm CT, on Animal Planet.

2. Bottle babies: 69 of them, to be exact. Our bottle baby mammas are amazing, and, as far as we can tell, we are still running the only neo-natal kitten nursery in Canada.

3. 298 cats spayed or neutered. Not nearly as many as we had hoped to get done, but not too shabby.

4. 180 adoptions. 180 cats and kittens found loving forever homes last year.

The Bad

1. Severe money troubles. Over the course of the year revenue was down by over $100,000. That's 30% of our operating budget, and it made things extremely difficult all year long. December income, which should see us through to the end of February, barely covered December operating expenses. We started this year with no money in the bank.

2. 40% drop in adoptions. The reason for this is unclear, but we normally find homes for well over 300 cats and kittens per year. This year only 180 were placed.

3. 40% drop in spays and neuters. This is directly related to the drop in income -- no money means no way to pay for surgery. In a normal year, close to 500 cats are spayed or neutered through our programs. In 2017, we could only afford 298.

4. Almost 40% of donation pledges were not honoured. There are a number of reasons for this -- expired credit cards, cards temporarily over limit, bank or card hacking / fraud, change in circumstances, etc. Whatever the reason, those funds were sorely missed.

The Absolutely, Horrendously Atrocious

Brace yourself. This one is very bad. In 2017, Craig Street Cats was forced to turn away over 10,000 cats and kittens. That's an average of 28 cats each and every day of the year. Of course, some days we had no calls. Other days we had calls for over 100 cats. All of those 10,000 cats belonged in our programs. They were not surrendered pets or friendly cats needing rehoming. These were all community cats needing access to programs unique to CSC, and we could not help them.

We are carefully going over options for the future, but a couple of things are very clear:

1. there is desperate need for the programs CSC offers

2. money to fund those programs is getting harder to find

So, we're asking for your help. Please, come adopt cats. Come out to our events. If you've made a pledge, please confirm that you are honouring it. Foster cats or kittens. Donate money, food and / or supplies. Volunteer at the adoption centre. Doing any of these things will help keep programs going and will save lives.

Cupcakes for Kittens

Cupcakes for Kittens is our annual Valentine's Day event. Baker extraordinaire, Cindy, spends weeks baking up amazing gourmet cupcakes and giant heart shaped cookies to help raise money for the critters. If you've ever had one of Cindy's creations you know you don't want to miss out on this!

We are accepting orders for cupcakes and cookies NOW until February 3rd, 2018. Pick up will start February 10th at our adoption centre 16-1421 St. James St. Ordering is easy! Just print out the order form, fill it out, and send it into us, along with payment. If you'd rather, you can order online, or call us at 204 421-1919 to place your order.

Extra cookies or cupcakes may be available at time of pick up, but we cannot guarantee quantities or flavours. Please order ahead to avoid disappointment.

Why do so many cats live on the streets of Winnipeg?

The answer to that question is both geographical and historical. Winnipeg is located in what was originally a tall grass prairie, in the middle of a flood plain. When European settlers first arrived they were met by incredibly fertile land, teaming with millions of native rodents (prairie dogs, gophers, lemmings, voles, mice, squirrels, ground squirrels, and more). All of them were perfectly adapted to a diet of seedy grasses. The regular prairie cycle of flood and fire made sure that food was abundant. The predators that fed on native rodents were already being thinned out by fur trapping.

Cue the arrival of the first permanent settlers, who saw all the wonderfully flat, fertile land, and started plowing it to plant -- seedy grasses (wheat, oats, barley, etc.). Of course, European settlers brought a couple of stowaways with them -- European house mice and rats. The mice and rats took one look at all the seedy grasses and happily set up housekeeping, raising large families of their own.

Knowing that the mice and rats were travelling with them, the settlers had also brought along a lot of cats. The cats set up shop, and went straight to work hunting all the rodents they could find. There were so many rodents that settlers were happy when their cats had kittens. More cats meant less rodent damage to crops. And there were so many rodents!

Fast forward about 100 years. It turned out that, in addition to being in the middle of a flood plain, in the middle of a tall grass prairie, Winnipeg is at the geographical centre of the continent. A perfect place to set up all sorts of grain buying and selling operations, and transportation depots. Winnipeg became a continental hub for grain transportation.

The rodents squealed with glee!

More cats were needed.

Up until the 1970's cats were pretty much the only form of safe rodent control available. Up until the 1970's there was no way to control cat breeding. In an agrarian society where grain stores had to be protected from literal hoards of rodents, abundant free roaming cats were the only viable solution. Office buildings had cats. Warehouses had cats. Train stations had cats. Homes had cats. Grain elevators had many cats. All of these cats had jobs and they were highly valued for their ability to keep rodents at bay.

This brings us to about 200 years of cats roaming freely and breeding indiscriminately. Food was abundant, so cats had large litters (it's not unusual for modern day community cats to have 6 to 8 kittens per litter). A large proportion of the kittens survived to adulthood, but no one knew they were there, because most of them were born outdoors. There was no such thing as kitty litter, so cats 'went' outdoors, and often spent most of their time outside. These hidden kittens grew up to have more hidden kittens, which grew up to have even more. Generation, after generation, after generation.

In the 1970's a new innovation became available for owned cats -- veterinarians began to offer spay and neuter for cats that lived with people. People now had the option to have cats without the responsibility of kittens. Yay! Over the next 40 years vets would promote spay and neuter, until now over 90% of owned cats are sterilized.

But wait -- what about all those hidden kittens? They were still hidden. There was still farm land within city limits. Grain was still being transported and stored within city limits. Rodents were everywhere. Food was abundant. The cats continued to breed and hide.

Around this time Winnipeg started to change. Less farm land was contained within city limits. Grain storage depots moved out of the city. Less grain was transported through the city. You might think that this would mean less food for the cats, but you'd be wrong. Remember that Winnipeg is in a flood plain, in a tall grass prairie. Three rivers and multiple creeks flow through it. Rodents are everywhere. Rabbits are everywhere. Large, meaty insects are everywhere. Birds are everywhere. Natural food is abundant in all areas of the city. Add to that the human source food supply -- garbage, restaurant dumpsters, grocery store dumpsters, and food litter dropped by careless people, and you have a virtual smorgasbord for cats.

Every city has a carrying capacity for unowned cats. That is, the number of cats that can be supported by the available food supply. Most modern cities have reached that capacity, and the total number of cats is more or less stable. Winnipeg has not reached its carrying capacity. There is no part of this city that does not have a rodent problem. Rabbits can be seen hopping all around the city, every day of the year. The cat population is still growing. Given the food supply, the potential for population growth is astronomical.

We've had our January thaw already this year. In about 8 weeks kitten season will start. . . .

2017 in Review

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