When her family moved to De Soto about six months ago, Kas Spoede immediately fell in love with the train town and its little shops along Main Street.
But it didn’t take the 15-year-old long to see a problem. A stray cat problem.
“Almost any time we go out, I see a new stray cat somewhere,” said Spoede, a 10th grader who takes high school classes online. “There’s not a TNR (trap-neuter-return) program here, so I was like, we need to do something.”
Spoede said she loves animals and has grown up with cats and dogs but had never been involved in a TNR program.
At first, she and her mom, Melissa Lambur, planned to help the stray cats by themselves, but it wasn’t long before Spoede, who moved to De Soto from Warrenton, realized the problem was too big for them and put out a plea on Facebook last month to churches and fellow animal lovers.
“(The city is) absolutely littered with stray cats, and the shelters are full,” she wrote in the post. “They need help (as soon as possible). I’m looking to start some kind of fundraiser to help pay for outdoor shelters, food (and) for them to get spayed and neutered to avoid this issue becoming larger.
“We need everyone’s help and everyone’s hand in this. It’s not (the animals’) fault for being dumped and abandoned.”
Spoede said the first Facebook post “blew up,” so she decided to ask residents to join her in a “Desoto Cat Project” Facebook group.
Spoede said she and Lambur were surprised with how many people wanted to help.
As of Monday, the group had nearly 290 members.
Spoede said the group’s first success story was a kitten that got stuck in an animal trap in the freezing rain. The community worked together to get the kitten freed and out of the cold.
“A woman in our group who had been looking for a new kitten similar to her old one saw the story,” she said. “The kitten looked identical to her old one, and she went and picked him up right away. His name is Ash.”
Spoede said the goal of the Cat Project is to lower the stray population and get as many of the cats that aren’t feral into homes.
She said the other goal is TNR.
“Getting as many as possible of the feral cats spayed and neutered and possibly vaccinated (is also important),” she said. “That obviously costs a lot more.”
Spoede said she and her mom are thinking about starting a GoFundMe account or creating a post office box for people to send donations to buy food and provide makeshift houses for the cats: duct-tape-wrapped Styrofoam coolers with straw inside.
Lambur said the two also are trying to work with the city and animal rescue groups to find housing for non-feral cats and resources for free or reduced-cost spay and neutering for the feral cats.
“What we were basically trying to do is partner with the shelters and stuff like that,” Lambur said.
While Spoede has a passion for animals, her plan after high school is to study psychology so she can help people.
Other pursuits
De Soto Police Chief Jeff McCreary, whose wife, Dana, manages the city’s kennel, said the city is looking into starting its own TNR project.
“Due to the large number of ferals, we would be unable to house them all, and (TNR) seems like a popular program in other places,” he said. “We are currently handling the cat issue like any other animals at large when we receive calls. We have had communication with the (De Soto Cat Project) and hope to coordinate some future work together.
“We have other people in town, like Melissa Buerger, who takes care of ferals and uses resources that she works with, like Stray Rescue of St. Louis. Melissa has a great heart for cats and dogs.”
Buerger, who lives in De Soto, said she believes the stray cat problem is everywhere, not just in De Soto, because many owners don’t get their animals spayed and neutered.
She said she learned about 10 years ago that you can’t just feed a bunch of stray cats.
“I was educated that if you are going to feed them, you need to fix (neuter) them,” she said, adding that she knows most people can’t afford $125-$150 to spay/neuter and get vaccinations for one feral cat. “A lot of good people are feeding them, but they don’t have the resources to spay and neuter them.”
Buerger said she has arranged to get between 40 and 50 cats spayed or neutered and wishes she could do more. She said with every stray cat you spay or neuter, you are preventing100 offspring.
“I could not do what I do without Stray Rescue,” she said. “They do it for free.”
Buerger said most of the stray cats are feral and unadoptable.
“If you don’t tame them in the first six to eight weeks, a lot of times, you are not going to tame them,” she said.
Buerger said she hopes to work with a local group to raise money to bring a spay and neuter bus to De Soto to fix 24 animals in one day.
She said TNR is not the solution, but it helps.
“It’s trap-neuter-return,” she said. “Return is the issue with a lot of people. They just want them gone. Some people don’t care how.”
Anyone who needs help can contact Buerger by calling the De Soto Police Department/animal control at 636-243-2300.