Statewide Spay/Neuter,
Step by Step
Targeted spay/neuter programs
are proven to reduce the number
of animals entering shelters and
save taxpayer dollars. But where
do you start?

Sharon Secovich

Sharon Secovich and two other women co-founded Spay Maine, a loosely formed, grassroots coalition of animal welfare advocates who successfully petitioned the State of Maine to implement and run a statewide low-income spay/neuter program. Following this success, Spay Maine went on to find the necessary public money to fund the program by convincing Maine's legislators to increase the dog licensing fee and by helping to place a "spay/neuter check-off box" on Maine's tax return. Spay Maine is currently in the process of working with the legislature to find even more funding for the program. Spay Maine's success proves that you do not have to be an existing organization to effect positive change for animals. 

In addition to Spay Maine, in 1994 Sharon and several other "crazy cat people" co-founded Friends of Feral Felines (FFF) to do TNR for the feral cats on Portland's working waterfront. Over the years, Sharon has been FFF's president, volunteer coordinator, fundraising coordinator, and a trapper. Sharon is also active with her local animal shelter by providing a foster home to kittens and working with the shelter's spay/neuter committee.

Sharon is employed as an environmental geologist at Woodard & Curran, Inc., in Portland, Maine. She received her bachelor's degrees in English and geology from the University of Massachusetts and her master's degree in public policy and management from the Muskie School of Public Policy at the University of Southern Maine. For her graduate school Capstone project, she studied Maine's companion animal overpopulation problem, which provided much of the information Spay Maine used to design the spay/neuter program for the state.