Photo Provided The Belmont County Humane Society is raising funds for kittens who need spayed or neutered before they can go to a rescue to eventually be adopted.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — People can donate to the Belmont County Humane Society’s GoFundMe, which it launched to raise money to get kittens spayed and neutered so they can be adopted.

The humane society is looking to raise money to pay for the procedures for about 40 cats to be slated for adoption. The GoFundMe is titled “KITTEN SEASON: Spay & Neuter Fund.”

A spay surgery usually costs around $100, while a neutering is around $50 or $60. Spaying is for female cats while neutering is for male cats.

The problem is that there are so many cats that are not fixed when the humane society takes them in, Director Angela Hatfield said. And because it is a private, nonprofit organization, it is not provided with any government funding.

“We’re a 501(c)(3) and so the importance becomes, this time of year with kitten season, the volume goes up, and the need becomes great to be able to get everybody spayed and neutered and shots before they’re adopted,” she said.

The organization is trying to raise extra money because there are many cats that need the procedure, and the upkeep on food and litter alone is a “huge undertaking,” Hatfield noted..

Hatfield encourages people to shop at Fur Pet’s Sake at 157 Main St. in St. Clairsville, which is a high-end resale pet boutique where the humane society earns most of its money.

A larger number of kittens need spayed or neutered, and only a few rescues around the area do the procedures for cats. Hatfield said spaying and neutering cats is the humane thing to do to not only reduce the population of cats, but to reduce illnesses in these cats as well.

She explained that since a female can have eight kittens at a time, she could have 30 or 40 kittens in her lifetime if the owner of the cat is not responsible enough or does not have the financial ability to get it fixed. She said that can lead to a situation involving horrific illnesses.

When cats are not vaccinated, they can get a disease called panleukopenia, which is includes a decrease in white blood cells that leads to a weakened immune system and is equivalent to parvo in dogs. There is virtually no saving a kitten once it contracts the disease, she said.

She added that the humane society received kittens that were “literally eaten alive,” since the blood was sucked out of them by fleas that were prevalent during the mild winter prior to 2024.

These are the types of situations cats get into when people are feeding large numbers of feral cats, Hatfield said. She added that people will feed them, but they won’t take on the financial responsibility to get them fixed.

Hatfield said this problem is directly affecting the entire Ohio Valley. In Wheeling, for example, there is an excessive number of feral cats, and an ordinance could go in place that prevents people from feeding the feral cats. The ordinance was up for a vote at the city council meeting Tuesday.

She added that if that were to happen, many cats will starve. But if there are responsible owners of the cat colonies who gets them fixed, then through attrition the colony will go away eventually. However, the ones that don’t get fixed just continue to breed, which creates an “enormous” burden for the areas where the cats live, such as near restaurants where they get into dumpsters.

Hatfield described the situation as inhumane, especially for the feral cats.

There are people in the valley who specialize in trap, neuter and release, where they will trap the cats, fix them and release them. She said this is the optimal way to deal with feral cats, because they will still be fed once they are fixed at a low-cost clinic, Hatfield said.

Hatfield said the humane society rescues a lot of kittens this time of year that all need to be fixed before being taken to a rescue in Berea, Ohio. The cats also need to have all of their shots and be tested for feline leukemia and FIV, feline immunodeficiency virus, which weakens a cat’s immune system.

Meeting all the needs of the cats can get expensive. Hatfield said she could have $1,000 in vet bills for 10 cats.

Hatfield emphasized that the humane society raising funds for the procedures is not a money maker — its members simply want to help cats.

“We’re not getting anything back,” she said. “All we’re doing is we’re taking these animals to a place where they’ll be safe. So the end result is they get adopted into really nice homes. They have forever homes.”

The humane society had a rough couple of months this past winter in terms of people coming to the shop, so now its financial need is greater.

The humane society calls its organization a safe haven, where cats that are very adoptable stay for some time and there are others that will probably never leave. The society will take care of them until the end of their lives.

Fur Pet’s Sake has been in business for about five years. Hatfield said the shop made the difference between the society making it or not during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re in the business of saving lives … ,” Hatfield said. “The public here in St. Clairsville, our community has really come together to support us in every way, but coming on the heels of this horrible winter that we had, our funds are empty for spay and neuter.”