Episode
Ep 663: Kitten Season Is Coming: What the Data Says and What to Do About It with Tori Fugate, Director of SAC Communications for the ASPCA
- Podcast
- The Community Cats Podcast
- Published
- May 5, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2005
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://communitycatscentral.com/episode-663-tori-fugate/
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Summary
"If we all came together to solve the problem, to solve the issue, and work together — those are the areas that we would see the most improvement." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and Strategies to Reunite Lost Cats with Families Certification Workshop and Increasing Your Impact With Targeted TNR Certification Workshop . The kittens are coming. We know it every spring, but this year, Shelter Animals Count has the data to prove exactly how big the wave will be — and which organizations will feel it hardest. If your shelter or rescue isn't already ramping up fosters, supplies, and community outreach, this episode is your signal to start today. Tori Fugate is the Director of Communications for Shelter Animals Count — now a program of the ASPCA — and she has spent more than a decade at the intersection of animal welfare and strategic communications. Before joining SAC, she was Chief Communications Officer at KC Pet Project, where she helped transform one of the country's most visible municipal shelters into a national model for innovative, lifesaving work. Tori joins host Stacy LeBaron to unpack the latest findings from SAC's 2025 Annual Data Report — including the striking reality that 59% of all cats entering shelters in 2025 were kittens under five months of age. They dig into how to use zip-code-level intake data to target foster recruitment and community outreach before the floodgates open, and why creative thinking — think paper collars with QR codes to crowdfund spay/neuter costs — may be just as important as resources and policy. They also tackle one of the industry's most alarming trends: only 23% of cats entering shelters in 2025 arrived already spayed or neutered, nearly 3% below pre-pandemic levels. Tori explains how SAC's groundb…