In the iconography of cuteness, few things hold greater heart-melting sway than kittens.
Hallmark, the world's largest greeting card company, owns 1,230 images of kittens and has put at least some of them on 894 products in the past decade. Corbis, a leading stock photography source, offers more than 1,400 images of kittens online for licensing. And ratemykitten.com proclaims it has posted 117,179 photos of people's kittens.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday April 28, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 41 words Type of Material: Correction
Shelter kittens: An article in Thursday's California section about kittens in Los Angeles city and county animal shelters said L.A. Animal Services had placed 204 neonatal kittens in foster homes in March. The actual number placed outside city shelters was 139.
But in the real world of urban Los Angeles, where the biology of cats, the human acceptance of outdoor felines and the shortage of surrogate cat mothers all intersect, the story is not so cute. In the 12 months ending March 31, city shelters put to death 5,622 unweaned kittens. That's slightly more than twice the number of pit bulls -- possibly the most reviled dog on the planet -- that were euthanized during the same period.
Los Angeles County, which takes in far more animals than the city, has its own grim statistics.
The county's Department of Animal Care & Control killed 7,994 unweaned kittens in the fiscal year that ran from July 1, 2005, to June 30, 2006.
April is the start of the cruelest months if you are an unweaned feline -- a kitten incapable of surviving without a nursing mother or human intervention. L.A. Animal Services statistics for the last six years show that the shelter intake of unweaned kittens increases dramatically in April, spikes in May and generally stays high through September.
"This is kitten season and it's a terrible time of the year for every shelter," says Marcia Mayeda, director of Animal Care & Control for Los Angeles County. "There are a number of animals that adapt to make sure babies are born in spring so they don't die in the cold. That's why all of a sudden we are overwhelmed with kittens."
County and city shelters have foster programs that train volunteers in the care of unweaned kittens, but the ultimate solution to the problem of the kitten overpopulation, Mayeda said, is spaying and neutering cats and changing human attitudes. She added: "I think there are so many cats because they haven't been given the same consideration as dogs -- from an animal welfare standpoint and from a public moral and ethical perspective."
When packs of dogs roam the streets, Mayeda said, people sound the alarm. "There are feral cats roaming around, but they don't bother anyone."
