11/08/2026
🚨 IMPORTANT EMAIL REQUEST 🚨 .
ANYONE WHO CARES ABOUT CATS CAN HELP.
TEMPLATE AS FOLLOWS:
( Just edit and add your details)
Email: [email protected]
OR
[email protected]
👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇
Dear Cats Protection,
I am writing as a [cat rescuer / fosterer / volunteer / cat owner / member of the public] because I am increasingly concerned that the UK is failing to tackle one of the most fundamental causes of cat suffering: the continued breeding of unwanted cats.
I am asking Cats Protection to urgently make **mandatory neutering of pet cats** a major campaigning priority, and to lobby the UK Government for legislation requiring pet cats to be neutered (subject to appropriate veterinary exemptions and carefully designed provisions for registered breeders if that is considered necessary).
This is not a criticism of Cats Protection's existing work. Quite the opposite. Your own evidence makes the case for stronger action.
Cats Protection states that **neutering is the only effective way to reduce the number of unwanted cats in the UK**. You also recommend that cats are neutered at around four months of age, because female cats can become pregnant from this age.
Yet your own statistics estimate that approximately **1.3 million owned cats in the UK are not neutered**. That represents a huge population of cats capable of producing further unwanted litters.
The consequences are painfully familiar to anyone involved in rescue.
Every year, unwanted kittens are born into a world where there are already thousands of cats needing homes. Cats Protection itself has acknowledged that there are already thousands of unwanted cats and kittens in animal charities throughout the UK.
The problem is not theoretical.
Cats Protection has helped an average of around **157,000 cats and kittens every year over the past five years**, rehoming approximately **34,000 cats annually** and helping around **130,000 cats and kittens a year through its neutering programme**. Thousands of cats are in Cats Protection's care at any one time, with many more requiring help.
Those figures demonstrate both the extraordinary scale of the work being undertaken and the scale of the underlying problem.
And this is precisely why voluntary measures alone are not enough.
Cats Protection has done an enormous amount to educate owners about neutering. You provide subsidised neutering for people who struggle to afford it, promote early neutering and work with veterinary practices and communities to remove barriers to neutering.
But after decades of education and campaigning, millions of owned cats remain unneutered.
We cannot keep treating the consequences indefinitely while leaving one of the principal causes largely untouched.
For rescuers, the consequences are devastating. Every unwanted litter can mean more kittens entering an already overstretched rescue system. Some will eventually find loving homes. Others will spend months waiting. Some will be passed from home to home. Some will become strays. Some will be born into inadequate conditions. Some will become feral. And some will die without ever experiencing the safety and care that a domestic cat deserves.
Cats cannot choose whether they reproduce.
They cannot understand why their kittens have been abandoned.
They cannot understand why nobody has room for them.
And they certainly cannot understand why humans continue allowing preventable litters to be born when rescue organisations are already struggling to cope.
This is why I believe we need to move beyond simply asking people to neuter their cats.
**We need to prevent the problem at source.**
The Government has already demonstrated that it is prepared to legislate where compulsory measures are necessary to improve cat welfare. In England, cat microchipping became compulsory in June 2024, with owners required to microchip their cats by 20 weeks of age.
The precedent is therefore already established: responsible cat ownership can include legal requirements designed to protect cats and improve animal welfare.
Indeed, the Government's consultation on compulsory cat microchipping received **33,423 responses, with 99% supporting compulsory microchipping**. Cats Protection played a major role in that campaign, generating more than 22,000 responses.
That campaign demonstrated something extremely important.
**When Cats Protection campaigns, people listen. Politicians listen. Government listens.**
The same campaigning strength is now desperately needed on neutering.
I am not asking Cats Protection to advocate a simplistic one-size-fits-all system.
There should be sensible veterinary exemptions where neutering would not be appropriate for an individual animal. There can also be carefully regulated exemptions for breeding if this is deemed necessary.
But the default position for ordinary owned pet cats should be simple:
**If you keep a cat as a pet, you should have a legal responsibility to prevent it from producing unwanted kittens.**
There is also a compelling argument for making neutering accessible rather than simply punitive. Government policy could be accompanied by subsidised or free neutering for people who cannot afford the procedure, targeted community programmes, support for rescue organisations and clear veterinary exemptions.
That would make this not merely a law about responsibility, but a genuine **cat-welfare strategy**.
It would also complement Cats Protection's existing work rather than undermine it.
Your organisation already says that neutering is the only effective way to reduce the number of unwanted cats. You already recommend neutering at four months. You already operate one of the world's largest cat neutering programmes.
So I am asking you to take the next step.
**Please campaign for the Government to introduce mandatory neutering of owned pet cats.**
Please:
1. Publicly recognise cat overpopulation and unwanted breeding as an urgent UK animal-welfare issue.
2. Make mandatory neutering of owned pet cats a formal Cats Protection campaigning objective.
3. Lobby DEFRA and Ministers for legislation requiring owned cats to be neutered, subject to appropriate veterinary and carefully regulated breeding exemptions.
4. Work with veterinary organisations, rescue charities and other animal-welfare groups to develop a practical implementation framework.
5. Campaign for government-funded or subsidised neutering so that financial hardship cannot become a barrier to compliance.
6. Use your considerable public profile to explain why neutering at or before puberty is so important.
7. Collect and publish stronger national data on unwanted litters, stray cats, relinquishments and rescue capacity so that the Government can no longer treat this as an issue that can be solved through voluntary advice alone.
The UK does not need more kittens born simply because humans failed to prevent them.
It needs fewer unwanted kittens being born in the first place.
Every rescue volunteer who has bottle-fed an abandoned kitten, every fosterer who has watched another litter arrive when there is nowhere to put them, every veterinary professional who has treated animals born into neglect, and every member of the public who has encountered a frightened stray knows that this is not an abstract policy debate.
**These are real animals experiencing real suffering.**
And much of that suffering is preventable.
Cats Protection has already shown that it has the expertise, credibility and public support to change government policy for cats. The compulsory microchipping campaign demonstrated exactly what can happen when the UK's leading cat charity puts its weight behind legislative change.
Please do not wait until the rescue system reaches breaking point.
**The rescue system is already carrying the consequences of unwanted breeding.**
We need Cats Protection to help prevent those consequences from occurring.
I therefore ask you to tell me whether Cats Protection is prepared to support and actively lobby for mandatory neutering of owned pet cats.
If not, I would be grateful if you could explain why not, particularly given your stated position that neutering is the only effective way to reduce the number of unwanted cats in the UK.
The cats of Britain cannot lobby Parliament themselves.
**We have to do it for them.**
Please use your voice, your expertise and your influence to make mandatory neutering a reality.
Yours faithfully,
[NAME]
[LOCATION]
[Optional: “I am a cat rescuer/fosterer and currently care for X cats.”]
[Optional: “I have personally experienced the consequences of unwanted breeding through…”]
