How Many Cats Is Too Many?

Saw a bit in the paper today about pet overpopulation in Seattle which sparked a hunt for statistics that was ultimately fruitless. Is there a disproportionately large pet population in Seattle? It's hard to say. Shelters will tell you that as long as they have any stock at all there is overpopulation and at the Seattle Animal Shelter you can get the parents spayed or neutered for free if you bring in proof of purchase (ie an unwanted litter). Doesn't that seem a little too reactive to be effective? How about encouraging people to spay or neuter their animals before there's an unwanted litter?

The press release from the city has a bunch of facts about pet overpopulation attached to it but they're kind of generic and not at all Seattle related. "It costs U.S. taxpayers an estimated $2 billion each year to round up, house, kill, and dispose of homeless animals," and "Approximately 71 percent of cats and kittens entering shelters are killed, based on reports from 1,055 facilities across America." Ok, that's interesting stuff but it would be nice to see something specifically related to Seatte. There are x number of feral cats in Seattle that consume x amount of wild birds per year. Something like that.