I'm a local cat volunteer who originally rescued the cat who was dodging traffic in the middle of a busy intersection. One of the most disturbing parts of ACC’s new policy is how inconsistent they've been when citing it. When I had the experience with the endangered cat, there were around 20 cats at ACC, but most of them were still too young to be adopted or were mom cats with nursing kittens. That left a record low number of adoptable cats for a huge shelter like ACC. I heard reports from volunteers that there were so few cats in the shelter the volunteers had nothing to do on their shifts.
I also heard of several other people who had rescued cats being turned away, as I was. I sent a letter to ACC and was told directly by Executive Director Donohue that, "We do not take in healthy cats who are living outside." However, since we have started making noise about my and others' experiences of being refused help by ACC for cats in obvious need, their intakes have gone up and the reports of cats being rejected went down (though some rejections have continued). I think these trends were directly caused by our protests.
ACC says, "Look, we have tons of cats in the shelter, so of course we aren't turning away cats," which avoids the point entirely. They don’t address the many times they have turned away cats. They don’t admit that they were wrong to have turned away a cat who narrowly avoided being hit by cars. They also haven't assured us that they will take cats who are in need in the future or even defined what a cat “in need” looks like. Their “need” determinations are totally subjective and can change each day and with each intake clerk.
When I called in to ask for help with the cat dodging traffic, I wasn't asked any questions to determine if this cat was truly in distress. I was told immediately to put the cat back, even after I'd explained the dangerous situation where I'd found him. When another good Samaritan brought in a mom cat who had lived in her friend's backyard for half a year and had given birth to kittens there, clearly a stray, she was immediately turned away. ACC told her the cat was probably someone's owned cat before she could even explain the situation.
Another woman who contacted me found an unfixed tomcat wandering on the side of a freeway with no houses in the area, obviously a stray or abandoned cat. ACC told her not to bring the cat in so ACC could scan for a microchip but to find his owner by posting flyers in her own neighborhood, even though she lived in a completely different area.
ACC claims that they ask questions of finders about the cats found and that they explain how to distinguish between a cat in distress and a happy, free-roaming cat. I can tell you from personal experience and the accounts of other volunteers that they rarely do.
The solution to making sure owned cats stay with their owners isn’t to ignore all cats in need. They just keep repeating their policy of not helping friendly outdoor cats, using the tired excuse that the cats are really free-roaming and owned. They make no attempt to distinguish or take responsibility for the kinds of cats who can be healthy and living outside AND in need of help, like lost, stray and abandoned cats. This response allows them to continue to turn away cats in need, with no assurances that they won't, no promises on how they will do better, and no accountability if they do it again.
Finally, they keep bringing up feral cats, which is weird, because we are absolutely not talking about feral cats here. We are specifically talking about found friendly cats who are lost or homeless outside, who need pathways for reuniting with owners or for adoption. I'm not sure why they think ferals are relevant, especially when Toni's Kitty Rescue, the nonprofit that manages ACC's foster volunteers, specializes in fostering feral mom cats and kittens in the most effective, low-stress, compassionate way and has done so for decades. When you remove ACC’s diversion into feral cats their response is laughably short and shortsighted.
Alena Ja