Some people may already know the story of Ms. Joan's Cat Colony and have donated to getting those cats TNRed (Trapped, Neutered, and Returned). For those that do not know, Ms. Joan is an elderly woman who lives alone on farmland in a house that's right on Baltimore Pike next to the South Hanover PA Pleasant Hill Vol. Fire Co. For over twenty years, she's been feeding community cats that have ended up on her property. She says it all started with one cat that was dumped on her land by a person. Then more people started to dump their unfixed and unwanted cats on her property and they wondered to her house for food and water. Today, there are over 30 cats taking shelter via her empty barns and that she is actively feeding.

My mother and I got involved because Ms. Joan lives so close to the main road and anyone who drives past her house will have noticed a bunch of cats on her porch as well as the occasional dead cat in the road that's been hit by cars. We stopped by to introduce ourselves to Ms. Joan a few years ago because we wanted to help her. Turns out she's been in over her head with trying to keep these cats fed and watered. The colony suffers from an endless upper respiratory infection and ringworm from the barns that were once used for hogs and never properly cleaned out after those animals were gone. I'm a part of a rescue organization based in Maryland and I have trapped many kittens and cats there that I felt could possibly be adoptable and we've gotten them fixed, vaccinated, medicated, and adopted via The Feline Rescue Association. The York County PA SPCA has been working with us in their TNR program for the cats that aren't adoptable. We've got about 75% of these cats fixed and vaccinated. That doesn't stop the cats from going into the road to be hit by cars, but it does reduce the number of deaths by stopping them from reproducing. And that's all we can really do about that situation.

Lately, these cats have become very trap savvy and will not go into them, despite our best efforts. This is a major problem because Ms. Joan's property is up for sale, commercially. If it gets sold, or in the mean time, if something happens to her, those barns will be torn down for sure and the only home and shelter that these cats have ever known, will be gone. I've reached out to numerous rescue groups in the area to try to find a group that will help us get these cats placed into other barn homes with no success. Barn home placement isn't as easy as it sounds. The cats first need to be trapped, fixed, vaccinated, then transported to the barn. The owner of the barn needs to agree to keep the cat safely confined in that barn for a few weeks and feed and water the cat daily. Otherwise, if you just drop a cat off to a barn they're unfamiliar with, they will run away out of fear. Many people think cats can survive on just rodents. This is not true, especially for cats who have been fed daily and given fresh water daily for most or all of their lives. And the other issue is that these cats are trap savvy.

So I thought an alternative to trapping them (which has become almost impossible at this point), would be for the fire department next door to allow the community to build the cats shelters on their property, mostly on the unused grass land between the fire department and Ms. Joan's property and for us to feed them daily. This would be the easiest transition for those cats once their shelters and feeding source are gone. I contacted the President of the Pleasant Hill Vol. Fire Company, TJ Fryman. His response was a hard NO for this to happen. He listed a few reasons, each one of those reasons I debunked. First it was a liability in case anyone gets bitten by a "feral" cat. I explained that these cats want no interaction with people other than to eat food and drink water that is provided to them once we leave the property. They won't come anywhere near us. The only ones that might are the tiny kittens and I plan on trapping them and putting them into my rescue organization for adoption. The next point he made was that the volunteer firefighters would feel pressured into caring for the cats. I explained they wouldn't have to have anything to do with the cats because we'd feed them daily ourselves. Lastly, he didn't want the fire department to have an image of taking care of "feral" cats and he said that the board members would not allow any of this to happen. He told me he could sit down with me in a meeting but that his decision would not change. I declined the meeting since he stated that his decision wouldn't change. There's no point in meeting with him in person just for him to tell me all the reasons he won't allow it to happen. 

His reasoning is BS in my opinion. I feel like any decent person would allow this to happen. The fire department could write up something saying that they are not liable for anything that happens in regards to those cats and the people that care for them. This is this colony's only chance to survive. This all started because people in the community started to dump their cats. It's only right that the community help solve this situation.

Please help us by signing this petition to try to change TJ and his board member's minds about allowing a few small shelters to be placed on their property. Technically this is the property of the community since this fire department is funded by the community. We may not have much time left to help save these community cats. If you'd like to view the full email correspondence between myself and TJ, please send me an email at jamiealexandrafelinerescue@gmail.com and I will share them with you. If you want to send an email to TJ directly, his email is tedrick.fryman@gmail.com. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this petition. It sometimes takes a village to do the right thing.