New lifelong contraceptive injection for CATS: Single-dose shows promising results for female felines - and it could benefit other species<br /><br /><br />Scientists have developed a single-dose contraceptive for female cats that shows promising results of lasting a lifetime.<br /><br />The breakthrough was developed by scientists at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden in Ohio, which set out to help control the 480 million population of feral or stray felines worldwide in a costly manner.<br /><br />The treatment involves the Anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH), which connects to receptors in the ovary and helps regulate ovulation. <br /><br />The injection is administered into the animal's thigh muscle while they are awake and could be used on other species in the future.<br /><br />An estimated 480 million domesticated cats across the world are feral or strays, with somewhere between 30 and 80 million free-roaming cats struggling on their own across the United States. <br /><br />The strays face hard lives themselves, not uncommonly coming to an end via euthanasia at an animal shelter. <br /><br />To make matters worse, these cunning and hungry feral hunters are responsible for decimating endangered bird, reptile and small mammal species across the world. <br /><br />But researchers have found a more practical solution than costly and failing surgical spaying efforts: a new long-term contraceptive injection for felines.<br /><br />'We are cat lovers,' said one of the study's co-authors, Dr. Bill Swanson, a director of animal research at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, 'which is one of the reasons we're excited about what this new technology can do to improve the lives of domestic cats.'<br /><br />'The trap, neuter [spay], return model,' Dr. Swanson said, 'is difficult to achieve on a large scale because surgery requires general anesthesia, an adequately equipped surgical facility, and more veterinarians than are currently available.'<br /><br />Swanson and his team's solution, as published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Communications, is a single dose of Anti-Müllerian Hormone (AMH) gene therapy, which they have found prevents ovulation in female cats over a long period.<br /><br />Six female cats at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden's Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife (CREW) were treated with the long-lasting contraceptive injection.<br /><br />Alongside those six felines dosed with the contraceptive AMH gene therapy, three untreated females served as a control group.<br /><br />
