KITCHENER — There are thousands and thousands of them. In industrial parks, backyards, near restaurant dumpsters throughout Kitchener and Waterloo, feral cats are roaming.

Roaming and breeding.

A single cat can have two to three litters of five to seven kittens a year. In seven years, one female cat and her offspring can generate some 470,000 cats. And in the twin cities, there are an estimated 15,000 to 25,000 feral cats, says Jack Kinch, executive director of the Kitchener-Waterloo Humane Society.

Those cats could be a nuisance, with intact males yowling and fighting in the night. The cats themselves lead difficult, dangerous lives as they struggle to find food, and contend with inclement weather and predators such as coyotes and raptors.

They contribute to the humane society's chronic cat overpopulation problem, which in peak summer months receives cats at its shelter faster than it can adopt them out.

The start to a solution came in the form of a six-figure gift from Bill and Marion Weber of Waterloo. Their generosity will fund a spay-neuter clinic at the humane society for "unowned cats" every Wednesday for the next year, starting next week. In a year's time, it will have neutered 1,000 feral cats.

"We just wanted to get something started, because there's such a need for looking after these cats," said Marion Weber. "It's a problem everywhere, in every city, in Canada and the United States."

The Webers hope their initiative will highlight the importance of spaying and neutering pets, and promote the responsibility of pet owners to spay and neuter their own animals.

Spaying and neutering the feral cats, and then re-releasing them into the wild, with the left ear notched so they're easily identified as neutered, is the most humane way to halt the vicious cycle of cat overpopulation, according to the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies.

The humane society is opposed to simply euthanizing the cats, and says euthanization is not a real solution, since any feral cats that aren't euthanized are out there, continuing to multiply.

"The cat's not there by choice," says Kinch. "Every cat in the shelter or that's on the street is there because a human failed them."

"It's not going to happen overnight," said Bill Weber. "But three years, five years, 10 years down the road it's going to come under control."

Kinch cites the well-known example of the cat colony on Parliament Hill, which took 20 years to dwindle down to four older cats who were adopted by volunteers.

The Webers' donation highlights the collaboration between the humane society, which does the surgeries at cost in its new in-house clinic, the sponsors who made them possible, and the volunteers who trap the cats and then release them after providing post-operative care, said Kinch.

Volunteer groups such as KW Community Cats help care for the homeless cats, putting out food where cats are known to congregate and providing rudimentary shelter. The groups also participate in trap/neuter/release programs, to the extent that their budgets allow, says Jennifer Cave, a volunteer who runs the Waterloo chapter of Toronto Cat Rescue.

Kinch hastens to add that the new clinic doesn't mean people can just show up with strays they want neutered. "It's like an operating room. We have to schedule the surgeries, and provide pre-care and post-care," and the society will be booking appointments through the community's various cat rescue groups.

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Cave hopes the new clinic will also increase awareness of community efforts to help feral cat colonies. The groups provide a half-day course on colony management, covering things such as how to handle a cat in a trap, to anyone who wants to help manage the local colonies.

"These (feral) animals are here because of us," says Cave. "We have a duty and a responsibility as human beings to work toward solving this problem. The hope is the community will be on board and that the colonies will diminish."