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COMMUNITY
GILBERT SUN NEWS | JULY 25, 2021
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Flood of cats challenges East Valley rescue BY ASHLYN ROBINETTE GSN Staff Writer
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et overpopulation has left animal shelters and rescues across the Valley at capacity or nearly full with pets needing homes. Kattered Tails, a Chandler foster home-based rescue, is at capacity and in desperate need of help with food and supplies for their 80 cats and kittens in care. “You get tired of telling everyone ‘sorry we’re full,’” said Monica Colello, CEO of Kattered Tails. With community support, Colello and her colleagues believe they can continue to fight pet overpopulation and ensure that every homeless cat and kitten they foster finds a forever home. “Community support is integral for us to continue to support the community,” the rescue stated on Nextdoor. “Without community support we will be forced to implement the full surrender fees when taking in cats and kittens. Caring for these little families is not free. Support is needed.” Pet overpopulation in Maricopa County was once second nationally only to Los Angeles County, according to the Arizona Humane Society. Since then, more efforts have been made to save lives and Maricopa County Animal Care and Control reported a decline in overall animal intake numbers in recent years and a higher percentage of animals being adopted out or relocated after coming in through their doors. MCACC has maintained an average annual save rate of 94 percent or higher since 2017. Yet, the influx of homeless pets is still high. Animal shelters and rescues like Kattered Tails now have to turn away pets due to lack of space, fosters, supplies or money.
Getting ready for an adoption event July 31 at Gordy’s Goodies Pet Food & Supplies are, from left, Gordy’s owner Lisa Thayer, Kattered Tails CEO Monica Colello and Kattered Tails Intake Director Amber Gries. The three kittens they are holding are up for adoption. (Special to GSN)
Shelters being at capacity is normal for this time of the year, according to MCACC. Although the pet population always increases during kitten season – when shelters and rescues are flooded with litters from unaltered cats – Colello said this year is worse. One reason may be that animals adopted during lockdowns at the height of the pandemic last year are now being abandoned. Moreover, many adoption events were canceled last year. Colello said she noticed a correlation between the pandemic and amount of pregnant cats and kittens on the streets. “I’ve noticed that a lot of people may have picked up kittens off of the street, didn’t get the kitten fixed, the kitten got pregnant and shooed out the door,” Colello said. “We’re finding a lot of dumped pregnant cats and we know they were for-
merly pets because they are approachable. Strays are approachable, ferals are not.” Due to the pandemic and a national veterinary shortage, many veterinary clinics were temporarily closed, shut down, no longer taking new clients, not accepting walk-ins, or booked for long periods of time. Hence, many strays were not being fixed. “People weren’t able to get their cats spayed or neutered,” Colello said. Closures and limited veterinary services weren’t just hard on pet owners but also impacted Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) programs, said Amber Gries, intake coordinator for Kattered Tails. TNR is a humane and effective way to stabilize outdoor cat populations by which feral cats are trapped, spayed or neutered, and then released into their colony environment, according to the AHS.
TNR programs help reduce cat overpopulation without the need for euthanasia. It also reduces displeasing mating behaviors such as yowling and spraying. “Vets were shut down,” Gries said. “Even now, I know people who do trapping, neutering and releasing and they can’t get appointments right now because vets are booked several weeks out. “When you’re a trapper, you don’t have that much time to sit on a cat you trap. You have to get it in and release it. Feral cats can’t be caged for very long. It’s making the overpopulation cycle so much worse.” The average mature cat can have three litters with a total 12 kittens per year, making it possible to have nearly 200 kittens in her lifetime, according to the AHS. “We want to stop the cycle,” Gries said. The mission of Kattered Tails is “to rescue cats and kittens left behind for whatever reason within local communities and shelters where there is high risk of euthanasia due to overpopulation, abuse, neglect, abandoned or homeless strays.” However, there is only so much that Kattered Tails can do without community support. Donations have significantly faltered for the rescue, which they rely on to keep operating. “Lack of funding happened,” Gries said. “We’re basically out of money.” In the beginning of the pandemic, Kattered Tails received a lot of community support and there was an increase of adoptions during lockdowns, Colello said. Yet, over time adoptions slowed and people lost their jobs, which meant money stopped coming in.
see TAILS page 13
