Woman Relinquishes 42 Cats To Local Shelter

This is the story of a woman who decided, too late (but better late than never) that she didn’t want her cats anymore and made the decision to dump them at a Newark animal shelter. The shelter manager says that she could have asked him for help at any time.

Last Monday night after the shelter had closed, an animal control officer was dropping off an animal at the 124 Evergreen Avenue facility around 8 pm when he spotted a woman in a red pickup truck attempting to abandon her cats. The unknown woman had 42 cats stuffed inside of five standard sized carriers, Associated Humane Societies of New Jersey shelter assistant director Scott Crawford told FIOS1 News. The Society is in charge of the local shelter.The cages were so full of kittens from a couple of weeks old to cats as old as six or seven, and packed so tightly they were bulging out of the cages.

Video

The video below explains the story, along with a photo of the woman being sought. If the video won’t play, below it are some screenshots.

Video screenshots – the cats shown are the ones in the best condition

The animal control officer managed to snap a few photos of the woman, who may face animal cruelty charges. The officer approached the woman and asked about what she was doing. The woman said she was no longer able to care for the cats. When the officer told the woman the shelter was closed and she’d need to return the next day with the cats to fill out paperwork, the woman said she’d need to get a ride back in an hour or so to pick up the cats. She became upset when the officer began taking her picture.

This woman should definitely face charges of animal cruelty and animal abandonment. The cat carriers were full of urine and feces, and the cats were sick with upper respiratory infections. Some of the cats had such severe eye infections their eyeballs had popped out of their sockets. Crawford reported seven cats with their eyes popped out, eight with eye infections and another dozen with URI’s. The shelter wants to find this woman. Not only to consider animal cruelty charges for abandoning her cats at the shelter, but because they fear she has a house full of more cats wherever she lives.

Crawford told FIOS News

“It is inhumane to have that many animals in a carrier that’s made for one or two animals maximum.”

Had the animal control officer not been on site, these cats could have died from the heat or from suffocation before morning. Crawford says they wouldn’t have lasted the night.

The shelter normally takes in two to three dozen pets per day, so receiving 42 at one time has created a stressful situation for AHS. The cats have survived their ordeal (hopefully none have died) according to the report originally posted July 9 by FIOS. They’re being treated and the shelter plans to transfer some of them to the society’s Tinton Falls and Forked River facilities. Hopefully rescues or fosters in the area will step up to take in some of these cats.

Be sure to share this article with friends, especially those in the Newark, New Jersey area. She needs to be found and charged and her home searched for more cats. There is a phone number in the video.

Elisa