FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:    Ria Brown, Public Information Specialist
                    Lee County Animal Services
                    (941) 432-2090 Ext. 241

Fort Myers, Florida, January 22, 2002— In honor of Spay Day USA, Lee County Animal Services will provide 100 low-cost spay or neuter surgeries for the pets of residents who cannot afford to alter their companion animals. The cost will be $10.00 for licensed pets and $15.00 for those that are unlicensed. Animal Services’ staff will be visiting neighborhoods where the need is the greatest and setting appointments for these surgeries to be performed in February and March at Lee County Animal Services’ clinic. The staff will also assist residents with special needs in transporting their pets to the shelter’s clinic.

The Doris Day Animal Foundation created Spay Day USA in 1995 to encourage each American to help solve the country’s severe pet overpopulation problem by having at least one cat or dog spayed or neutered. Currently, shelter workers are forced to kill an estimated five million homeless cats and dogs each year—that’s one every 6 and one half seconds. Taxpayers across the country bear the cost of picking up, housing, and eventually killing these abandoned pets—as much as $176 per animal in some areas. At Lee County Animal Services alone, 7,544 cats and dogs were euthanized in 2001.

"The solution is simple," says Scott Trebatoski, Animal Services Director. "By spaying or neutering companion animals, we can end these unwanted births, reduce the needless suffering that homeless animals endure, and save taxpayers’ money at the same time," he adds. Since two unaltered cats and their offspring can produce 420,000 kittens in seven years and two unaltered dogs and their offspring can produce 67,000 puppies in six years, Animal Services hopes to prevent approximately one half million unwanted births through this years’ Spay Day effort!