On Thu, 26 May 2005 13:14:45 GMT, John Ross Mc Master
wrote:

There is a tomcat who was fighting my Cinder every time I let her into
our backyard. The group consensus was to trap the tomcat and have him
neutered.

Here's the story to date. Read the diary.
http://www.catster.com/pet_page.php?j=t&i=140147

I'm aware of the cat overpopulation problem but I still feel guilty
about this. I feel really bad. If he has an owner, the owner will have
4 days to reclaim him before the neutering. All he has to do is phone
the Humane Society. But somehow I feel guilty about this. I don't own
the cat and I'm cutting its balls off.

It calls for a different perspective. These animals don't have the
level of self-awareness people do. They act on instinct and have no
control over where it takes them. Tom cats fight, and the fights
cause injury and infection, so toms don't live long as ferals. Queens
have a whole different set of problems to contend with. In either
case, you do the animal a service by neutering or spaying. Then it is
truly free to do what it enjoys most -- lounging and hunting --
without a "species tax" that causes it to expend immense sums of
energy and take grave risks for an activity not presently required by
the species.

Think of it as a charity donation. If you give $100 to an animal
group, you'll be lucky if 15% of it goes to animal care after
marketing costs. By implication, that means a $100 out-of-pocket
expense to care for a particular charity animal is equivalent to a
$650 contribution to an organization, or perhaps $450 netted for
income taxes. It's a cost-effective way to make a social
contribution, which, as Donald Rumsfeld famously quipped, will be
insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

Charlie