New Program Offers Free Pet Spaying/Neutering

CURB YOUR PET: Mayor Bloomberg announced a new program on Tuesday that will offer spay and neutering services for free to the pets of New Yorkers. (Li Xin/The Epoch Times)

NEW YORK—Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a new program that offers free pet spaying and neutering services. He was joined by officials from Animal Care & Control (AC&C) on the steps of City Hall for a press conference Tuesday about the new service.

The spay and neuter services will be available from a mobile Spay and Neuter lab that is being lent to the non-profit Toby Project for $1 per day by the City’s AC&C. The mobile lab will allow the group to perform services near New Yorker’s homes.

“Millions of New Yorkers are pet owners, and millions more share the goal of reducing the number of abandoned pets and finding every pet a home. This new partnership with the Tony Project is just the latest example of how our administration is leveraging philanthropies and the private sector to deliver services more efficiently and effectively,” Bloomberg said in a press release.

The program’s aim is to reduce overpopulation in animal shelters. Outreach programs will also focus on communities where pet overpopulation is the most severe.

“Our mission of ending the killing of thousands of adopted dogs and cats each year in New York City’s municipal animal shelters by preventing their births can now be actualized through this unique partnership with AC&C,” said Dr. Andrew Kaplan, director and founder of the Toby Project in a press release.

In 2008 close to 15,500 dogs and cats that were unable to find homes were euthanized in municipal shelters in New York. The Toby Project works to halt the euthanizing of pets through community outreach and education.