The Bakersfield SPCA and the city’s shelter have been given close to $700,000 to spay and neuter thousands of cats over the next three years.

The grant from the national Best Friends Animal Society also pays for a team of people to find and fix colonies of cats before they come to the shelter. SPCA Executive Director Julie Johnson says they need to lower the number of babies being born because most cats who end up at the shelter are not adopted.

Johnson says they will also return feral cats to the wild because they cut down on rodent and insect populations.

Kelli Pierce