Since the start of the Brussels-Capital Region’s compulsory sterilisation policy for cats in 2018, 28,266 cats have been sterilised, Brussels Environment announced on Friday. Last year, 5,464 cats went under the knife in a bid to control the capital’s ever-burgeoning feline population.
According to statistics published by Brussels Environment last December, the Brussels-Capital Region had a total of 34,340 sterilised and living cats. Since 2018, the region forces cat owners to sterilise their animals before they reach the age of six months.
The region highlights that the goal is to limit the proliferation of young cats, sometimes abandoned by their owners. These animals often end up in crowded shelters, where local authorities are sometimes forced to euthanise them.
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The drive to sterilise Brussels cats is spearheaded by Brussels Minister for Animal Welfare, Bernard Clerfayt, who announced last September that the Brussels cat sterilisation policy was to be further reinforced. Now, any cat passing through an animal shelter must be sterilised before being handed to its new owner. There is also now an obligation to identify the sterilisation status of cats residing within the Brussels region.
Shelters will also soon be able to give kittens up to adoption from eight weeks old, following favourable opinions from vets, against a previous 13 weeks.
