[stouset]

The harm of neutering and spaying needs to be balanced with the harm of having dramatically greater numbers of feral cats and dogs, whose lives are often what I will charitably describe as not enviable, and with the problems having large numbers of feral animals can cause to an area.

The alternative we in America have settled on right now is shelters which perform euthanasia on unwanted animals. I would love to know how communities that have banned these procedures deal with the issue.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

There are plenty of places in the world were stray cats and dogs are normal and there's nothing wrong with that. You may find their lives not enviable; but you are a human. Er, presumably. Plenty of strays in Greece where I'm from are taken care of by volunteers so they're well fed and they have shelter and medical care when they need it. The greatest danger is traffic accidents but that's also true for domestic animals and neutering certainly doesn't protect from that.

You use the word "feral" but I find that's a bit of a loaded term because it makes it sound like those animals are wild and violent. They're usually not, or at least not more than domestic animals. In the UK, where I live, there are no strays and still there are thousands of dog attacks, some causing injury or even death every year. Cats of course don't attack humans unless you really piss them off and even then it's not like they can seriously injure you.

You could also think about all the "feral" animals we do not try to neuter in large numbers like pigeons or seagulls. Much of what's wrong with their lives is that people treat them like dirt. That's not a problem you solve by castrating an animal, or at least a non-human animal. Why only neuter cats and dogs? Because we care more about them? That sounds like some kind of perverse inversion to me.

And let's not forget: the only difference between a "feral" or stray cat or dog and a pet is that someone's taken the pet in. I suppose in civilised countries you only get your pets from a certified breeder and you know their pedigree but where I come from if you want a cat or a dog you can just take one from the street. Or, often, they come to you on their own; cats mostly, but dogs, too some times. That was the case for most of the animals I've ever cared for: basically all the cats and a couple of the dogs too.

>> I would love to know how communities that have banned these procedures deal with the issue.

There's a famous documentary about the stray cats of Istanbul, called Kedi (meaning "cat" in Turkish). I haven't watched it yet but it sounds like the thing you'd want to watch if you haven't grown up with strays all over the place:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kedi_(2016_film)