If you follow any cat rescue groups online, you know this time of year is rough.
You’ll see messages like these, from local nonprofits like Boyle Heights Cats, Luxe Paws and The Cat’s Meow:
“Fosters Needed Urgently”
“9 times out of 10 your garage, bathroom or basement can save a life.”
“This is an urgent plea for fosters to… help out during the 2 most challenging months of the year.”
The combination of more people taking summer vacations and the height of kitten season — the time of year when cats are most fertile — means organizations are overwhelmed trying to find fosters to care temporarily for rescues, trappers available to catch them and vets able to spay/neuter and vaccinate cats. It’s a difficult time for animal shelters too.
“So if you find kittens, if your neighbor finds kittens, if you find a cat, see what resources you can access or what resources the shelter has, and do your best,” says Dr. Kate Hurley, director of the Koret Shelter Medicine Program at UC Davis. “That’s a great contribution if you can help keep even one cat or kitten out of the shelter so that they can have room for one that has absolutely no other choice.”
L.A.’s ‘community cats’
There are, according to LA Animal Services, about 960,000 “community cats” living throughout the city. These are free-roaming, stray cats that are often described as “feral” or “unsocialized.”
(“Community cats” has become the preferred terminology among many animal welfare organizations because some of these cats can be more socialized than others.)
These free-roaming cats are a part of life in any city, but it’s easy for populations to get…
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