The Meow Mission: Stray Cat Control

Elijah Henry, Reporter

February 17, 2024

Image Credit – The Meow Mission

The roaming feline population of South Bend has proven to be an issue over the years, and the problem only keeps expanding. However, The Meow Mission is here to regulate this influx of cats without homes.

The Meow Mission is a trap, neuter, return organization run by volunteers dedicated to reducing the population of struggling stray cats in the South Bend area. Since starting in 2011, the Michiana-based organization Meow Mission has spayed 10,159 cats in Michiana Alone.

According to Pawlicy, around 37.5% of Indiana households own a cat. Considering this applies to South Bend, which has a population of 103,353 people, this means that there are roughly 39,000 domesticated cats in South Bend. However, this number does not include how many stray and struggling cats there are. As per ABC57, in 2014, there were around 50,000 stray cats in the South Bend area. Since then, this number has only risen. This combined number of stray and domestic cats continues to grow.

With this many cats inhabiting the streets of South Bend, it presents a health risk not only among businesses such as food service and households but also to the cats themselves. However, with the help of organizations such as the Meow Mission, the dangerously high number of cats can be reduced through practices such as spaying/neutering.

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Not only does this trap, neuter, and return plan help reduce the population of cats, but it is also a more humane way of tending to the cat population. Many organizations have implemented this strategy as opposed to more inhumane matters. These organizations trap cats and other stray animals just to kill them. This inhumane way of reducing the population has been proven to cause more harm than good. This is called “The Vacuum Effect.” The Vacuum Effect occurs when a particular animal species notices the sudden emptiness of a living space where members of their own species used to reside. Hence why, killing the cats rather than spaying/neutering them creates an even bigger problem.

The Meow Mission is just one of many organizations that help reduce the effect of overcrowding cats in the Michiana area. In South Bend, anyone who comes across a cat can inform The Meow Mission and have them spayed or neutered and sent back to where they belong. The Meow Mission instructs anyone who comes across a stray cat on how to properly and humanely catch these cats and take care of them afterward.

For more information, visit The Meow Mission.

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About the Contributor

Elijah Henry, Reporter

Elijah Henry, better known as Eli, is a senior at John Adams High School, and is excited to return to writing for The Tower for a second year. He hopes to provide interesting stories and expand the horizons of The Tower. Outside of the newspaper, he’s part of other clubs, such as the John Adams Volunteer Association (JAVA), and is hoping to participate in Quiz Bowl this year. He also recently became a member of the National Society of High School Scholars (NSHSS). After high school, Eli aspires to attend Purdue University and study cybersecurity to achieve his goal of acquiring his dream job which is a cybersecurity specialist. Eli is a persistent soccer player. He hopes to continue playing for both recreational and competitive teams in the future. He has played for 10 years and counting, both for the Michiana Soccer Association (MSA) and Jr. Irish. Eli has two cats, has a job at Notre Dame, and is hopefully going to get his license soon. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with friends and family, creating art, and coding websites and bots. His biggest accomplishment with coding is helping develop an AI for an unreleased project. Eli hopes to provide great content and ideas to expand the horizons of The Tower and offer a good experience for the readers. For The Tower, he’ll do it all: write opinions, interviews, current events, and more. Eli also plans working with other staff members of The Tower to create a more interesting and fun environment for the reader, such as possibly taking part in media, and overall just ending his high school career with some fun.