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Point a phone camera here — it opens Stop Pet Overpopulation in Georgia.
We're a grassroots coalition of Georgia rescue volunteers asking the state to fund what actually works — spay and neuter. It isn't a values debate. It's arithmetic.
Sources: Best Friends Animal Society (2023); GA Dept. of Agriculture DCSP awards; GDA license data + ProPublica IRS 990 filings; Minnesota Animal Population Control Study Commission. The 300:1 ratio is derived by our coalition from these public records — see The Evidence.
Georgia's shelters are overflowing, and healthy, adoptable cats and dogs are euthanized every day. But the larger problem lies outside the shelters — animals on the streets breeding the next shelter population. Many county animal-control agencies have stopped picking up strays, creating public-health and safety risks and leaving animals to suffer in the community. Volunteer rescues are overwhelmed, closing intake or shutting down under rising costs. This crisis falls hardest on Georgia's poorest residents, where poverty and overpopulation go hand in hand.
The crisis lives outside the shelter. Unsterilized free-roaming animals breed the next generation of shelter intake — one unspayed cat can become 300+ in three years. You can't adopt or euthanize your way out of arithmetic like that.
Many counties have cut stray intake. Volunteer rescues are closing intake or shutting down under rising costs. As the burden shifts to citizens, private dollars can't cover a problem this large.
Georgia's Dog & Cat Sterilization Program isn't a budget line — it depends on specialty license-plate sales and voluntary tax check-offs. Prevention gets a fraction of what reactive shelter operations cost.
Specific. Proven. Fiscally responsible. Bipartisan.
Fund the Dog & Cat Sterilization Program at a competitive level through a direct, cost-neutral appropriation — not license-plate sales. Model it on Texas's $13M TxSNP, which sends money straight to surgery providers serving rescues, shelters, and government agencies.
Vouchers or credits that bring surgery costs toward zero for qualifying families — reaching people who don't live near a rescue. Poverty and overpopulation travel together; this breaks the cycle.
A clear state-level definition so counties can legally sterilize and return free-roaming community cats — the most cost-effective tool to stop outdoor population growth. Texas resolved this exact question in 2023.
Meaningful penalties for illegal breeding and abandonment, plus an animal-abuse tracking database like Florida's. Animal cruelty is an FBI-tracked predictor of violence against people.
Sustained, funded messaging on responsible pet ownership and the value of spay/neuter. Culture change at scale needs more than volunteers and social posts.
"$1 now or $20 later? That's not a values debate. That's arithmetic."
New Hampshire chose $1 thirty years ago. Texas, New Mexico, California, Maryland, and North Carolina are prioritizing prevention. What is Georgia doing?
Our coalition compiled annual expenses for every Georgia Department of Agriculture–licensed private rescue — using IRS 990 filings where available and conservative estimates for the hundreds of small organizations below the filing threshold.
The result documents roughly $120 million in annual private rescue spending against a state contribution measured in the hundreds of thousands. That's the basis for 300:1.
We organize Georgians to show up — at the Capitol, at county commission meetings, and in lawmakers' inboxes. Add your email and we'll tell you when it's time to act.
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Scan to open this site
Point a phone camera here — it opens Stop Pet Overpopulation in Georgia.