When I first heard of the “Trap, Neuter and Return” policy as a proposed solution to helping control the stray cat population on USI’s campus, I will admit that I thought it sounded a bit sadistic.

I mean, why put forth the effort to capture the cats, if we’re just going to release them back into the same environment, right?

But then I took the time to think about it—really labor over it.

I thought of my aunt and uncle and how they have stray cats that live in their barn. I thought of the amount of stray cats that I see around town every day. In neighborhoods. In alleys. In streets.

I even thought of the cat room at the Vanderburgh County Humane Society and how it always seems to be full of felines.

It occurred to me that in an ideal world, that room wouldn’t have any cats in it. In an ideal world, we would be able to give every stray cat a home.

Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world. So we just have to do the best we can.

And I, for one, think putting this policy into action would be a step in the right direction.

If we can control the stray cat population now, we can help control the amount of cats that are in animal shelters or in ads on Craigslist in the future.

Now, that could be weeks from now, months from now, or even years from now. No one can truly approximate how long it would take to really see the results we want.

But maybe eventually, it won’t be a problem anymore.

And if the need for cat adoption dies down, we can start to consider putting these campus cats in shelters.

For now, though, we must take action in the most humane way possible. Every cat deserve a chance at life.