Brianne Tushaus has trapped between 150 and 200 feral and outdoor cats in the past year, taking them to the Animal Humane Society in Golden Valley to be spayed or neutered for free and returning them to her south Minneapolis neighborhood to live out their lives.

But now, she’s unsure if she can continue after AHS began charging $75 to sterilize such cats July 1.

“It’s going to be a significant reduction in the number of cats I can help year over year,” Tushaus said. “It’s an unseen problem that’s about to become more visible.”

It’s a concern shared by others doing the same work: trapping, neutering and returning cats to local colonies — known as TNR — since the AHS made the change. They say the number of stray or abandoned cats has already skyrocketed in recent years because people can’t afford them or don’t want them post-pandemic, adding to the problem.

Officials at the AHS, among Minnesota’s largest animal-focused nonprofits, say they still support TNR efforts but cannot afford to fix cats for free anymore.

“Ideally we’d like to do as much as we can for free, or as low of a cost as we can,” said Dr. Graham Brayshaw, AHS’ chief medical officer. “We had to take a hard look everywhere for, what are we charging?”

Brayshaw said the cost of other AHS activities, from pet adoption fees to kids’ summer camps, have also risen. Charging $75 to fix a cat, which includes vaccinations, doesn’t cover the cost of surgery.

Maia Rumpho, who runs Pet Project Rescue, a north Minneapolis-based nonprofit that sterilizes about 500 Minnesota cats annually, said the change will cause an explosion in the Twin Cities’ cat population and put pressure on smaller nonprofits. She said people in low-income communities caring for cat colonies already face hurdles to getting them fixed, like transportation.

“My big stance on it is about equity and breaking down barriers to vet care,” Rumpho said. “It is now entirely out of grasp.”

The practice of trapping, fixing and returning cats began to gain acceptance in the 1990s as a humane way to control the population of “community cats” — stray, feral or unowned cats that live outdoors, often in colonies. It’s an alternative to euthanizing strays, which advocates say doesn’t reduce cats’ numbers anyway.

“We can’t adopt our way out of the cat overpopulation crisis,” said Jacky Wilson, director of TNR and community outreach for Bitty Kitty Brigade, a Twin Cities-based rescue focused on saving neonatal kittens.

In the Twin Cities area, there are just a few places to get community cats fixed; none are free. The Minnesota Spay/Neuter Assistance Program (MNSNAP) in Minneapolis charges $100 for males and $120 for females, which includes a rabies vaccination, according to its website. Another option is Purple Cat, a vet clinic in Baldwin, Wis., that charges $70 to sterilize a community cat, according to its website.

Minneapolis Animal Care and Control (MACC) provides sterilization to community cats for one local nonprofit on a “rare and limited basis” but doesn’t have capacity to do more, said Anthony Schendel, MACC’s director. St. Paul Animal Control has no in-house veterinary facilities and calls local rescues for help with altering pets, said Casey Rodriguez, a St. Paul spokesperson.

The Bitty Kitty Brigade recently had a meeting to discuss whether to continue their TNR program; they decided to carry on, but are trying to figure out how to fund the surgeries.

Many other cat rescuers said they will continue providing the work, despite the cost. Some hoped local governments would step up, while others wished the AHS would provide a way for people to donate specifically to TNR efforts.

Alecia Larsen, an independent cat rescuer in Eden Prairie, recently sterilized and returned 47 cats to a colony in Jordan. Last summer, Larsen, who has a heated and air-conditioned garage for the cats, got 70 cats in Otsego fixed.

“I have a good job. But $75 times 70 cats — who can afford that?” Larsen said as she picked up two newly altered cats from MNSNAP before work. “I’m going to try to get out if I can.”

In recent weeks, cat rescuers have been posting on social media about the new cost. They worry about more cats getting hit by cars, more kittens eating out of Dumpsters and more baby birds, rabbits and squirrels being dismembered.

Dramatic change isn’t impossible, but it’s not likely, said Brayshaw, who helped start the AHS’ TNR program.

In fact, he said, the number of kittens taken in by SPAC, MACC and the humane society has declined over time, likely due to the “really engaged, wonderful trapper community” that has made real progress. In 2024, the AHS took in 2,080 kittens — half as many as it did in 2013, the year before it began the TNR program.

AHS spokesperson Brittany Baumann said the nonprofit has experienced ongoing financial challenges that began during the pandemic. It faced a $3.5 million deficit in its 2025 budget, and has already eliminated 24 staff positions, trimmed expenses and expanded fundraising.

Veterinary care has become more expensive, Brayshaw said, with the cost of supplies like anesthetics and pain medicine increasing. A shortage of vets and vet techs means the humane society has to pay its staff more.

Kerrie Seigler, an independent cat trapper in St. Paul Park, said she and her peers were already spending thousands of dollars on trapgolden, outdoor cameras, and medicine like antibiotics and dewormers.

“We really put our hearts and souls into helping the strays and ferals,” she said. “If you only knew how much sickness and injury were out there — it’s devastating.”

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For more than a century, Minnesota has made its abundance of lakes a signature part of its identity: the Land of 10,000 Lakes. But our neighbors to the east claim to have us beat.

Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources touts that the state has “more than 15,000 lakes.” In an apples-to-apples lake battle, however, Minnesota is the clear winner. That’s because many of the “lakes” in Wisconsin’s tally would be considered ponds in Minnesota. Officials in the two states follow very different standards.

This discrepancy fuels plenty of jokes and trash-talk between the two states.

“Sometimes I take a leak out behind my garage and it forms a puddle,” a commenter wrote on a 2023 Reddit thread on this topic. “If I was in Wisconsin I could call it a lake.”

A reader wondered why the two states have such different metrics for defining what counts as a lake. They sought answers from Curious Minnesota, the Star Tribune’s reader-generated reporting project.

Similar lake battles are actually being waged around the world. The reason? There is no “universal, scientifically based” definition to differentiate ponds from lakes and wetlands, according to a 2022 article in the journal Scientific Reports. This glaring absence “hampers science, policy, and management, and creates confusion,” the authors wrote.

Minnesota defines a lake as a body of water with an area of at least 10 acres. That approach makes more sense than Wisconsin’s less precise definition, said John Downing, a professor of biology at the University of Minnesota Duluth and director of the water science research program Minnesota Sea Grant.

But he said the number that’s emblazoned on Minnesota license plates, 10,000, is off by a wide margin. The actual number is just over 14,000, by Downing’s estimation.

Becoming the Land of 10,000 Lakes

The state’s unofficial slogan has origins dating at least as far back as 1874, when a professor named Ransom Humiston gave a speech at the State Fair about Minnesota’s “glorious future.” Humiston co-founded the settlement that became Worthington, Minn.

“We may justly claim that we are the HUB of North America … we have thirty-eight rivers in the State, six of which are navigable within the State, amounting to an aggregate of about 1,200 miles,” said Humiston, according to a write-up in the Worthington Advance. “Then come over 10,000 lakes, abounding in delicious fish, and the paradise of myriads of waterfowl.”

Another state nickname nearly prevailed, however. At the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1901, Minnesota advertised itself as the “Bread and Butter State.”

A turning point came in 1917, when state boosters went all-in on the “10,000 Lakes” idea in hopes of capitalizing on the growing popularity of automobile tourism. “Ten thousand Minnesota lakes are calling you,” proclaimed newspaper ads in places like Kansas City. “Come up and play where it’s springtime all the summer long.”

A resort owner and state senator from Walker soon created a group called the Ten Thousand Lakes of Minnesota Association to market the state as a tourist destination. More than 50 communities contributed funds.

“Tourists have seen Colorado and the Yellowstone park and are looking for new fields to explore,” the Austin Daily Herald reported in 1918. “No state in the union has more natural beauty than Minnesota with its 10,000 lakes.”

The phrase landed on state license plates in 1950 and has been there ever since.

All things considered, Humiston’s 1874 estimate wasn’t too shabby. But today, Downing is able to get an accurate count by analyzing the Minnesota DNR’s database of waterbodies and tallying everything that’s 10 acres or larger.

That’s how he landed on 14,380.

Why 10 acres?

The 10-acre cutoff helps delineate the character of a lake versus its more mucky cousin, the pond. Lake scientists believe that a lake is only a lake if it has a “wave-swept shore,” Downing said.

“Having waves is important, because it changes the character of the water body,” he said. “It changes the character of how the shorelines work and how the sediment builds up.”

Here’s how he does the math: Winds of about 35 miles an hour need to blow across a certain distance of surface water in order to form waves of about 4 inches. Assuming that the body of water is roundish, it would need to be about 10 acres to get the right-sized waves, he said.

If a body of water is too small to have waves, its shores are usually “marshy, full of organic material and mucky stuff,” he said.

Although limnologists (scientists who study lakes) generally agree on this definition, there’s no federal standard to separate lakes from ponds. The U.S. Geological Survey even lumped them into one category in its National Hydrography Dataset.

So in each of the 50 states, the department of natural resources is free to draw the line between lake and pond as they wish. When tallying their 15,000 total, Wisconsin’s agency includes “lakes” as small as 2.2 acres. This is a definition that even Cory McDonald, a research scientist with Wisconsin’s DNR, has called “somewhat nonconventional.”

In 2019, the fact-checking site Politifact analyzed the national data in a definitive takedown of comments by Wisconsin’s lake-touting tourism secretary, Sara Meaney.

Meaney had claimed on the radio that her state had more lakes than Minnesota, saying, “We win. We win.” But when PolitiFact limited lakes using the 10-acre standard, Wisconsin’s count dropped from 15,000 to 6,176.

Quibblers sometimes point out that Minnesota is larger than Wisconsin, opening up a different battle over lake density.

That’s getting a little too in the weeds for Downing’s taste. Both states are truly lake-rich, he said.

“Northern Wisconsin and northern Minnesota are among the more what we call lacustrine places in the world,” he said. “That means ‘lakey,’ and it changes how the forests work and alters weather. It is a huge tourist and economic engine.”

“We are the water states, really, of the United States,” he said. “It really does distinguish our states from others.”

If you’d like to submit a Curious Minnesota question, fill out the form below:

Read more Curious Minnesota stories:

Is Minnesota’s tiny Lake Itasca the true source of the Mississippi River?

Why does Minnesota have so many lakes?

We call Wisconsinites cheeseheads. What do they call us?

Should Minnesota be considered part of the Midwest?

How did Minnesota become the Gopher State?

What Minnesotans want to know about their Land of 10,000 Lakes

A driver on Interstate 694 in Little Canada this week saw five day-old baby wood ducks stuck in a storm drain on the side of the freeway and knew they needed help.

For that motorist, who posted about the incident on Reddit but asked to remain anonymous when reached by the Star Tribune, there was only one thing to do: stop in rush hour traffic, get out of the car and put operation duck rescue in action.

The problem is that’s against the law. It puts both the individual and other drivers at risk of a fatal or serious injury crash, Sgt. Troy Christianson with the Minnesota State Patrol said Friday.

“We totally understand. It’s natural reaction to want to keep wildlife and other animals safe if they’re on or near the road. Nobody wants to see them in danger from passing vehicles,” Christianson said. However: “People should not stop on a freeway or get out of their vehicle to rescue animals. The risk of a crash is too high.”

The motorist stopped on the shoulder of 694 near Rice Street and about 100 feet back from where the ducks were stuck, according to the social media post.

“I never once feared for my life because I parked on the widest part of the shoulder,” the motorist wrote. “I was also able to reach through the grate while staying on the other side of the guard rail. The only time I feared for my safety was when the cops showed up.”

The motorist said police were aggressive and gave her a stern warning to move on.

Brittney Yohannes, communications director for the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Roseville, sided with the State Patrol.

“Human safety always comes first,” Yohannes said. “That is a big part of our messaging.”

Drivers who spot animals in distress on city, county or state roads should leave rescues to the professionals. That means calling the local public works or fire department, which will respond in cases where a situation involving animals is having an adverse impact on traffic, Yohannes said.

Motorists also have the option to call 911. The dispatch operator can contact animal control or the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to respond, Christianson said.

Minnesota law allows for drivers to pull off to the side of the road if they’re having car problems.

“Even then, we recommend people stay buckled up in their vehicle until help arrives,” Christianson said.

The driver who stopped was able to pluck two of the tiny ducks from the drain and get them to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, where there have been 87 ducks brought in for treatment this spring.

But these ducks didn’t make it. Yohannes said it’s likely they expended a lot of energy and endured a lot of stress during the ordeal.

Still, the driver posted that she has no regrets.

“I’ve always had a passion for wildlife and will do what I can to help if I see an animal in distress,” she wrote.