Tomorrow is the First Day of Spring. Technically, Spring falls just after the Vernal Equinox, when day and night are each 12 hours long as the Sun’s center crosses the equator on its way north. In myth, this coincides with the ability to balance an egg upright (equally difficult but possible everyday) and when shadows vanish (but only if you’re directly beneath the sun at the equator precisely at noon). In poesy, Spring is when a young person’s fancy turns to thoughts of love. And over at PHS/SPCA, Spring means kitten season, baby bird season, and the first of the two baby squirrel seasons (the second of two annual litters of squirrels come at the end of Summer).
I won’t go so far as to say Spring sucks (I love babies as much as anyone) but it is hard on the animals as well as the people who take care of them. You can make it easier.
News flash, folks, there are lots and lots of homeless cats. Reduce cat (and dog) overpopulation by surgically sterilizing (neuter males, spay females) your animals. I’ve written before (and likely will again) that a spayed/neutered animal is a healthier animal, and that pet overpopulation (the cause of more animal suffering and death than all cat and dog diseases combined) can be prevented by this simple, safe and inexpensive procedure. This community gets very real bragging points on this score: PHS/SPCA was the first humane organization in the nation to offer low-cost (and now no-cost) sterilization clinics, and we’ve seen pet euthanasia reduced by 98% as the result. And as for wildlife: baby birds and baby squirrels come our way because they get separated from their moms before they’re ready to be on their own. Save tree trimming for the Fall, and let’s keep those sterilized cats indoors to safeguard wildlife from our little but still effective predators.
Pets already sterilized and indoors, tree trimming put off? How about volunteering down here to help those babies now beginning to come our way?
