Okanagan Humane Society rescues 21 cats from one home.

[Catherine]

With the best of intentions an older man started feeding a few cats. 
Of course they were not neutered so they multiplied. He struggled to look after them and then he moved.
The cats were left behind. A neighbour checked on the cat situation and alerted the OHS. They have taken in the cats and will provide for them and find them homes.


https://globalnews.ca/news/11533469/okan...s-21-cats/

This is becoming an all to familiar problem for animal shelters and rescue groups. People feed cats, but they do not get them neutered.
The numbers just keep increasing. At some point they can't look after them and the local shelters are left trying to care for many cats.

The shelters are trying to help by having food banks and cheaper neutering clinics. 
People need to actually get the cats neutered before they have dozens of kittens to look after.
When cats multiply like that they can end up living miserable lives. In some cases they will be euthanized.
It is cheaper to neuter one cat than to try and care for 20 cats.

[Aussienan]

It's sad when you hear about things like this,I suppose his heart was in the right place.

[Catherine]

The old guy meant well, but he made it worse.

An older woman in my neighborhood died and left two female cats. They mostly lived outside and her family might not have known she was feeding them.
If they had been taken to a shelter then, there were just two of them. A couple of women in the apartment nearby decided to feed them. They wouldn't take the two cats in, but they fed them. In about two years there were 40 cats. The two women couldn't afford to feed 40 cats. So the cats were hungry.
They were in terrible shape. Some of them were really feral and couldn't be tamed. They got injured by raccoons. It was sad.
Fortunately they had started the Trap Neuter Release program by then. They took over the situation and neutered and vaccinated the cats. 
They set up a location and time for feeding the cats and regular volunteers looked after them. With no more kittens being born, the numbers dropped and eventually there were no more strays. 
Just helping the first two cats properly would have prevented a lot of suffering. Even getting them spayed would have helped. It would have been cheaper than feeding 40 feral cats.