This concerns the Hillsborough County Animal Shelter in Tampa, Florida. I trust one of my cat advocate friends out there will know who to get this information to in order to help the cats. Immediate action is needed to save the shelter cats.
photo from previous article of seized cats
From what I understand, the 300+ cats coming in from the hoarding case I wrote about here has allegedly stretched the shelter beyond what they’re physically able to care for.
This is a summary of the messages I’m getting in about the situation. Those who reported it asked it be kept confidential.
“Have a huge problem here xx hoarding case added 300 to shelters 200 -500 cat overload, just received a message the boarding cats are dying in their cages with no treatment, one of the women got her phone yanked away as they were trying to take photos, contact news and post.TAMPA Hillsborough county.”
Hillsborough County Council needs to be pressured to appoint more manpower because they simply don’t have enough people to care for these cats. Local government should be held accountable to the cats in the care of any animal facility because if this were happening to an individual, that person would be charged with animal cruelty and neglect.
If everyone will do their part in not only sharing but in contacting news media as well as Hillsborough County Council members, perhaps we can get the cats the care they need to save them. The website listing the council members can be found here.
Please post this article to social media. I know many of you can’t help, but you may know people who know other people who can demand action.
As promoted by HSUS, ASPCA, and Maddie’s Fund 1-Million Cat Rescue program — RTF all the cats. Return to Field. Just dump them somewhere where nobody will first notice. It’s what all humane rescues do today when they have too many cats that they can’t care for.
Why aren’t you promoting what HSUS and ASPCA prides themselves on as a totally humane solution?
Sonja, you need to produce top quality evidence that humane rescues dump cats in the ‘field’. And I mean firm immutable evidence not some rant or diatribe based on poor anecdotal evidence.
Update: You are referring to a version of TNR, a well-respected way of dealing with feral cats. Your description distorts the reality.
Michael, Sonja is correct. Remember the upstate shelter that was seen releasing 2 pound kittens in an unfamiliar and dangerous area only a day or two after being spayed? It makes the shelter’s live release numbers look better. They don’t kill them at the shelter, they place them back in the community to be killed by animals or hit by cars. There are several who can vouch for this because they saw the AC officer and ran over to rescue the kittens. This in NOT TNR. This is putting them out just anywhere.
Here you go, right from ASPCA’s own mouth.
http://www.aspcapro.org/blog/2017/04/07/lets-make-1-million-modest-ambition
Here’s another from the multimillion-dollar 100-Million Rescue-Cats Challenge
http://chewonthis.maddiesfund.org/2017/04/new-partnership-making-1-million-a-modest-ambition-for-shelter-cats/
“Maddies Fund” is a well-known multimillion-dollar cat-rescue organization who promotes and preaches their methods to anyone.
Even Becky Robinson of “Alley Cat Allies”, the primary (and wealthiest) TNR promoter in the USA, promotes RTF as part & parcel of all their TNR programs.
https://www.facebook.com/AlleyCatAllies/posts/10156210237882088
Is that “top quality evidence” and “firm immutable evidence” enough for you? Since you seem so familiar with and promote all these organizations and their values and methods, I’m truly surprised that you are even unaware of and questioning RTF as one of the many “humane” methods everyone in the USA uses to “save” cats’ lives. It’s either that (RTF) or a humane kill-shelter. What’s your choice? Are you going to side with all these organizations that claim dumping cats out in the field to fend for themselves and die excruciating and inhumane deaths is the more “humane” option just to “save” their lives? You would have to, wouldn’t you?
When any no-kill shelter (or even kill-shelter) is full-up, then rescues “pull” cats from them and dump them back out into the fields and woods to “save” their lives. Common practice of any no-kill shelter.
Why are you pretending to just now learn about this? When searching your own website you even did an article about people who were convicted of an animal-abuse crime for practicing RTF.
By your description you give the impression that this is mass cat abandonment. It is not. It’s a version of TNR. You distort the reality. I guess your mind is distorted and twisted. It sounds like it.
And don’t forget that local governments have been approached by animal advocates about the dumping of cats aren’t doing anything about it. The cat dumping issue and the dogs on chains 24/7 are being brought to the attention of city and county councils and not a thing is being done. From what I’ve heard, people have also contacted Maddie’s Fund about how the money is being used to TND (trap, neuter, dump) just to improve shelter numbers.
You are referring to TNR or a version of it. The way you describe it you’d think they were abandoning cats by the million. You distort everything. Fowl person.
Since custody was signed over to the county rescue groups can step in. The problem right now is rescues are full with this year’s kitten season.
Shared, prayers for all. Again many cats will die thanks to a sick hoarder. I don’t care if a hoarder wrecks their own life but if you abuse animals I have no sympathy. You need to go to jail and never be near another animal ever. Usually they will not admit to fault for their cruelty from their mental illness and they need to be told they killed these animals and not coddled and sympathized with. Jail time with mandatory pysch counseling so no other amimal dies. Makes me so angry. Of course the shelter cannot handle this. Were there no rescue partners or orgs that will transport cats to other areas to be put up for adoption? If they just let the cats die and sit on their hands they disgust me also.
Disgusting..