An animal shelter near our Washington, D.C., office recently sent out an emergency appeal for funds to supply special formula for the kittens who arrive “every spring.” The e-mail states that the organization will “aggressively train” new foster parents so that they can temporarily house these unweaned, homeless kittens. The alert does not mention finding and spaying and neutering the parents of all these kittens.

Perhaps you’ve heard the parable about the babies floating down the river and the valiant rescuer who attempts to rescue each infant as he or she floats by, until some wise person heads upstream to find out who is throwing the babies into the stream and stops the culprit.

Contrast that appeal for kitten formula with PETA’s news release about our “Are You Kitten Me?” event, through which we hope to nip the problem in the bud with an unprecedented lifesaving special offer: free spay and neuter surgeries for cats on one of our mobile clinics. That’s right: We’re committing to one full month of 100 percent free spay and neuter procedures for felines—so that kittens never have kittens.

“Animal shelters are already turning away homeless animals, as there’s no room for them, so now is the time to take action to reduce the annual spring flood of homeless kittens,” says PETA Senior Director Colleen O’Brien. “A simple ‘snip’ is a stitch in time, and PETA is calling on feline guardians everywhere to do the right thing for cats now and prevent thousands of kittens from being born with nowhere to go.”

PETA is taking an aggressive approach to abating the crisis. While we need to ensure that every kitten, puppy, cat, and dog has shelter and is protected from cruelty, neglect, and abandonment on the streets, the only proven way to prevent waves of kitten and puppy litters is sterilization. Every penny put into this preventive measure is worth a pound of attempted cure.

It’s outrageous that some who claim leadership in an effort to protect dogs and cats ignore the root cause of the problem and pretend that we can adopt our way out of the homeless-animal crisis. This is a formula for failure.