Comedian Ellen DeGeneres and her wife Actress Portia de Rossi are well known for their outspoken advocacy for all animals. Now de Rossi, star of the ABC comedy Better Off Ted, has become an "Alley Cat Ally" and will appear in a print Public Service Announcement for the organization to help raise awareness about the growing feral and stray cat problem.
Feral cats are wild offspring of domestic cats but are not socialized to people and live in family groups called colonies. The cats are the result of pet owners who do not spay or neuter their animals. Estimates put the number of feral and homeless cats at more than 60 million and it's a rapidly growing problem. A pair of breeding cats and their offspring can produce more than 400,000 cats in seven years. Because they are not adoptable, they are almost always killed in animal shelters.
Alley Cat Allies, founded in 1990, developed educational materials and wrote step-by-step instructions on the care and protection of stray and feral cats. Alley Cat Allies also introduced the practice of spaying and neutering entire colonies with Trap-Neuter-Return.
 "I'm very happy to be involved with Alley Cat Allies and their efforts to help stray and feral cats," said De Rossi. "The Trap-Neuter-Return approach is the only way to help contain the populations and save their lives."
Rossi recently starred as a fifth season series regular on the FX popular original drama series Nip/Tuck and starred as Lindsay Bluth Funke in the Fox comedy Arrested Development. She also played lawyer Nelle Porter'on Fox's Ally McBeal.
Learn more about Alley Cat Allies on their website --www.alleycat.org.
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