| Hi AAS,
I hate asking for help, especially to
another group who works so hard! You have helped us out in the past
tremendously, and we are in another situation.
We (myself, and a couple of
volunteers) have started a Spay/Neuter/Release mission in the
Pritchard area of Kamloops. A woman contacted me from the Pritchard
area with a bit of a situation on her hands. She, and her family
had just moved into the home 2 weeks prior, and realized that the
property was inhabited by several feral cats. From what she told
me, there was a momma cat (who was semi-tame), 5 babies (who were
about 10 weeks old), and 2 other cats. I agreed that we could help
trap, and she agreed that she would feed/water them, and continue to
allow them to use her property as home. Well, of course this
situation has grown to be a bigger problem than first thought (as
most feral situations do). The first 2 feral cats we trapped, she
had never seen before. Seems we have a LOT of brown tabbies on this
property! Daily now, this woman writes down descriptions of the cats
she sees, and we are now aware that there are many, many more cats
than we first thought when taking this on. Some of the cats we are
catching are in quite rough shape. Our vets estimate some of the
ferals to be as old as 10! Unneutered Tom cats, running feral for
10 years is almost unheard of. They are usually killed off by
coyotes, hit by cars, or die of illness or infection much earlier.
One of the boys we caught had so many scars on his ears, that they
could not stand up. He didn't have earmites, which I had thought by
looking at him. He had scar tissue covering virtually all of his
body, a huge tape worm infestation, and abscesses that had burst
open. Poor fella....but he is now neutered and has been spotted,
happily eating at the new feeding station. I am aware that AAS has
lots of their own costs to deal with, but wondered if there may
possibly be some funding available for a project such as this? I
have included a picture of one of the cats in rough shape.
|
