Last year, Operation Catnip, a team dedicated to spaying and neutering cats in Alachua County, Florida, spent nearly $1 million on surgical procedures for over 7,000 cats. However, this number barely made a dent in the estimated 40,000 feral cats in the community. Surgery remains the only permanent option for cat contraception, requiring a time-consuming process of trapping, transporting, operating, and monitoring individual cats. Additionally, surgery poses risks and challenges for the cats involved.
Operation Catnip’s founder, Julie Levy, expressed the team’s desire for a quick and simple alternative to surgery, describing it as “amazing, huge, transformative.” Fortunately, a breakthrough may be on the horizon. A team of American researchers have developed a genetic treatment that can safely and sustainably halt ovulation in cats with just one injection. Valerie Benka, the director of programs at the Alliance for Contraception in Cats & Dogs, envisions a future where giving cats an injection becomes the primary method of contraception.
Although the therapy is still in the early stages of testing and has not entered clinical trials, it shows promise as a safe and long-term birth control option for female cats. Unlike previous alternatives to surgical sterilization, which often had limited efficacy or unpleasant side effects, this new treatment utilizes the cat’s own DNA to produce anti-Müllerian hormone, effectively blocking the ovaries from releasing eggs. The contraceptive effect appears to last for at least a couple of years without significant side effects, as observed in small-scale studies.
However, larger clinical trials are necessary to determine the long-term safety and effectiveness of the injection. There are still unanswered questions regarding the duration of the contraceptive effect and potential alterations to other hormones in cats. While this injection may not completely replace surgical sterilization, it provides veterinarians with more options for contraception. Other groups are also actively researching alternative methods, including gene therapy and hormonal injections, for both dogs and cats.
The ultimate goal is to reduce the reliance on mass surgical sterilization in shelter medicine. Julie Levy envisions a future where contraception can be easily delivered to cats using portable technology. She hopes to one day tell her students stories of surgical sterilization as a thing of the past, replaced by a safer and easier alternative for both cats and humans.
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