By Froilan Gallardo
Special Correspondent
IT was a cat day yesterday at the sprawling Xavier University main campus in Corrales St., this city.
Volunteers and members of the Cagayan de Oro Animal Rescue Organization chased the cats all around the campus in Xavier University’s 1st Spay and Neuter Campaign.
Their target: 36 alley cats who have made the empty campus their home during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Maria Veronica Large, an employee of Xavier University and one of the volunteers said they managed to catch only nine adult cats and seven kittens.
“We will continue to look for them in the coming days,” Large said.
The cats that were caught were immediately neutered on the long tables prepared by the volunteers at the Peace Park of the campus.
Dr. Keeno Ian Moralde of the Vets for Pets led the team of at least four veterinarians who participated in the Spay and Neuter Campaign.
Moralde said the cats and kittens were all neutered to stop unwanted pregnancies and control the animal population on the campus.
“Even young kittens can reach sexual maturity in four months,” he said.
Moralde said castration or neutering is helpful to cats.
He said the cats no longer exhibit violent sexual activity and grows fat after being neutered.
Volunteers sedated the cats before the veterinarians operated on them. The cats sleep during the entire procedure, which usually lasted for 45 minutes.
“Cats are always in heat. A female cat can have three litters a year. Each litter average four kittens,” Moralde said.
Large said the cat population in Xavier University has grown so big that the school administration decided to catch and throw them away.
“I pleaded that spaying the female and castrating the male is a better way than throwing them away,” said Large who has been feeding the cats on the campus for ten years.
Large said the school administration relented and agreed to shoulder fifty percent of P36,000 needed for the spaying and neutering of the cats.
She said the school also constructed the cages for the cats and provided the Peace Center venue.
Large said donors and animal lovers paid for the remaining 50 percent of the money.
She said neutering a male cat costs P1,000 while the cost of spaying female cats is about P1,500.
Large said the cats will be up for adoption after its healing time of seven days.
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