PRESQUE ISLE — In the past few years, by the time late January rolled around, the Central Aroostook Humane Society typically would have 100 or more cats at the shelter, all in need of a good home.
“It is amazing,” shelter manager Betsy Hallett said Thursday after checking her records and finding only 28. “Our actual intake of pregnancy-age cats and kittens have decreased each year because of the support of the Cleo Fund.”
The Cleo Fund is a statewide program that provides vouchers to pet owners so that they can get their pets spayed or neutered at a reduced cost, or free in some cases. The nonprofit organization is based out of West Kennebunk.
Several other Aroostook County shelter operators also credited the Cleo Fund with helping to drastically reduce the shelter cat population in their communities.
The amount of the voucher is dependent on income and can range anywhere from $5 in some cases to $33 in others, according to Susan Hall of Falmouth, a board member of volunteers for the Cleo Fund.
Hall said that statewide in 2015, the board provided 921 vouchers inside York County, 1,895 vouchers outside of York County and 385 vouchers for feral cat surgeries.
Lorraine Monfils, director of the Ark Animal Sanctuary in Houlton, said the Cleo Fund helped to reduce the cat population of greater Houlton by providing vouchers that paid for the spaying or neutering of 297 cats in 2015.
Hall confirmed the figure, saying that the fund organization just started working in the Houlton area in December 2014 after being contacted by a former animal control officer about the cat overpopulation.
“Our intake numbers are decreasing because of this,” said Monfils. “A spay costs more than $100 now, and lot of people can’t afford it. But they also don’t know that there are programs out there like the Cleo Fund that can help. It is all about education. I mention it whenever I can.”
She said that there are so many programs out there to assist people with neutering and spaying to help prevent unwanted litters that there is “absolutely no excuse” not to alter your pets.
She said that besides the Cleo Fund, there is also the Help Fix ME Fund, a statewide low-cost spay/neuter program for cats and dogs, including pit bulls and pit bull mixes. Various other communities, organizations and county agencies also offer reduced cost spay/neuter programs, according to spaymaine.org.
Heather Miller, executive director of the Houlton Humane Society, said on Thursday that the organization’s intake numbers on cats are “definitely down” because more people are spaying and neutering due to programs like the Cleo Fund.
Hall said the Cleo Fund is hoping to secure a Maine Community Foundation grant in an effort to continue to work with cats that are located just in the greater Houlton area.
Besides just providing spay/neuter vouchers, the Cleo Fund program also conducts mobile spay/neuter clinics each year where animals, including feral cats, are transported to a veterinarian to be spayed or neutered and also vaccinated against rabies. The Cleo Fund subsidized or fully paid for 921 spay/neuters and rabies shots through these clinics in 2015, according to information provided by the organization. They also partially or fully paid for 1,274 spay/neuters and rabies shots at veterinary clinics across the state.
Up in Presque Isle, Hallett said that so far this year, they have adopted out 25 cats and only taken in 9.
“I know that we will have hard months ahead,” she said. “But so far, that is a pretty good start to the year.”
