Alley Cat's Rescue

08/16/2024

3/4 outdoor kitties in my new neighborhood
I've been leaving food out for them to gain their trust so I can one day trap them and make sure they all get fixed

Got A LOT of work to do once we get money flowing to help these sweet souls ❤️

08/14/2024

We have officially moved to Allegan County!!! 🎉

Months ago I saw that there was a desperate need for TNR out here and not many resources.
I was crossing my fingers that somehow, some way we could get out here to build up my rescue from the bottom.

The next few years we will be working hard to get things set up.

07/22/2024

Sorry I have been silent.
My family and I went through a small ordeal and are now working on purchasing our first home.
As of now I do not have the space or resources to rescue in Kent County.
Goal is to build up again in the new home within the next couple years!
Brighter and better things ahead!

03/29/2024

A little sneak peek into the lives of these three floofers 🥰

03/29/2024

These three have been with me since February 10 and have come around quite a bit for being older 🥰

They've all managed to escape their pen once 🤣 and afterwards resorted back to a feral state. Once I got them back in and settled and fixed where they escaped from, they warmed up a lot more!
Their progress is so awesome to watch and be a part of ❤️

03/29/2024

Feral mom's kittens are about 4 weeks old now and eating wet food and trying out moms solid food! They all use the litter box already too!
🥰

03/25/2024

After being burrito'd it's time to play 🥰

03/25/2024

These three wee ones are pooped from their second day of partying with the older kids 😌
Little foot on the left, Dotty on the right and the beautiful void is Bear ❤️🥰

03/23/2024

Kitten party today!
We have three 3 week olds, three 7 week olds and a very spicy very stubborn 14 week old.
They have positively reacted well through the kennels, hoping a little bit of play time with friends will help them come out of their shells and let their guards down. Especially the 14 week old 🥺

03/19/2024

🙏🎉🎉🎉🎉❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

We got the last one!!!!!!! 😭

03/17/2024

Rose and Daisy the two beautiful calico girls I fostered have been adopted! 🥹

As well as Heidi, the sole survivor of the apartment rescue 🥹

I'm so happy for these sweet girls 🥰

Adoption Mews!
Rose & Daisy, Norton, Heidi, Dos, Bellarose, and Irma were all adopted this week! We are thrilled to see these wonderful sweet cats find their forever homes.

03/17/2024

Mom and her one baby are back home relaxing 😌

Sad I couldn't get the other two but hey, this is more progress than I've had the last week 🥹

I'll be back out tomorrow ❤️

03/17/2024

One down two to go 😭😭😭😭 ❤️❤️❤️❤️

03/16/2024

Day 2 of trying to trap the kittens

3 regular traps set and one drop trap with a bottle holding the door open, set.

They have kitten food, adult wet food, KFC chicken and dry kibble.

I've got about 4 hours before it gets busy out here again 🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞

Come on sweethearts, your momma is so worried about you 🥺

03/15/2024

Well 🤷 I finally trapped this beautiful momma cat.

This situation has been stressful the past 4 days as she's moved her kittens 3 different times. Miraculously I've managed to find them time and time again. This isn't ideal though, as her kittens are still hunkered down where I trapped her 🥺

Waited for hours using all the tricks and they just weren't coming out, that area is so loud and busy. 🤦

Will be pulling an all nighter tonight and tomorrow morning and onward to try and trap her babies. I cannot leave any behind.

For now she is safe, and possibly pregnant again 😩

And this is a perfect example of WHY TNR is so important.

I'm just, ugh 😫😞

03/15/2024

As cute as kittens are, there are simply not enough homes for all of these cats 😩
Please spay your animals as early as possible.

Are you romanticizing pregnancy in cats?

This year, we saw more kittens in January than I can remember in years past. MULTIPLE litters, and more coming every day – and it’s March ☹ I hear of rescuers whose homes are already full of cats and kittens, and know they are at an early BEGINNING of the flood of summer kittens. When I look at a social media post looking for oohs and aahs over pregnant cats, my heart goes out to the rescuers who are spaying pregnant cats – because there are not enough homes, and not enough rescuers!

Whether you believe in spaying pregnant cats or not, please – don’t romanticize pregnancy in cats. Thousands of cats and kittens will die this year because there are not enough homes. If you are someone who plans to keep a pregnant cat to deliver, use her story to educate as to why it is important to spay asap. Show people you may be able to save THIS cat, but there are thousands more in need of help. When the kittens are born, sure – share their pictures, but make it the goal to show people what they can do to prevent needless suffering by promoting spay/neuter. And if you are using that mom as a fund-raiser, maybe spend the dollars to sponsor a spay day at your local spay/neuter clinic. THAT would be wonderful!

03/13/2024

After frantically worrying about momma and her babies all day, I walked around the area and checked every possible location she could have moved her family to.

By some miracle I saw her, and I watched her crawl into a tiny hole, then I seen little kitten tails and heads popping in and out. 😭

I'm so glad they are safe, and I hope they stay put so I can trap them in a few days.

03/13/2024

Drop trap set now I just wait 🤞
She's been seen wandering around the area but I did not see her in her usual spot. I'm just hoping she and her babies are still here and just hiding 🥺

03/13/2024

Last night I was driving home after a long day and got a call about a stray showing up at my uncle's. Beautiful Siamese boy.

Hoping to catch him now too.

Oh dear it just never ends 🥺

03/13/2024

Read on to find out why we don't remove ferals unless absolutely necessary for their safety.

Removing cats from an area by killing or relocating them is not only cruel—it’s pointless. Animal control agencies and city governments have blindly perpetuated this futile approach for decades. But scientific research, years of failed attempts, and evidence from animal control personnel prove that catch and kill doesn’t permanently clear an area of cats.

Scientific evidence indicates that removing feral cat populations only opens up the habitat to an influx of new cats, either from neighboring territories or born from survivors. Each time cats are removed, the population will rebound through a natural phenomenon known as the “vacuum effect,” drawing the community into a costly, endless cycle of trapping and killing.

The vacuum effect is a phenomenon scientifically recognized worldwide, across all types of animal species
Well-documented among biologists, the vacuum effect describes what happens when even a portion of an animal population is permanently removed from its home range. Sooner or later, the empty habitat attracts other members of the species from neighboring areas, who move in to take advantage of the same resources that attracted the first group (like shelter and food). Killing or removing the original population does nothing to eliminate these resources; it only creates a “vacuum” that will inevitably draw in other animals living nearby.

Scientific research has observed the vacuum effect across many species—herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores. When studying mountain lions, for example, one researcher noted, “When you remove resident lions that have established home ranges you create a void.” He continues, “Other resident lions that have home ranges that may overlap the individual you removed now find that territory empty. This allows them to expand their range, as well as create openings for transient lions to establish a new home range.”

Simply put, when mountain lions are removed from their habitat, other mountain lions move in. This behavior has also been documented in possums, badgers, and raccoons.

A habitat will support a population of a certain size. No matter how many animals are removed, if the resources remain, the population will eventually recover. Any cats remaining after a catch and kill effort will produce more kittens and at a higher survival rate, filling the habitat to capacity. As one study found, “populations greatly reduced by culling are likely to rebound quickly.”Over time, the number of cats in an area where a feral cat colony has been killed or relocated will simply recover and return to its original size.

Removing cats from an area is a futile effort—one that cannot succeed
The only documented “successful” effort to remove a population of cats occurred in a cruel program on uninhabited, sub-Antarctic Marion Island. It took two decades and ruthless methods—methods that are impossible to replicate in areas inhabited by people including poisoning, hunting with guns, and introducing disease—to clear the island of cats. As scientists tried each method, they noted “the recolonization of preferred habitats, cleared of cats, from neighboring suboptimal areas…” In other words, like the mountain lions, whenever they killed cats in the best habitats, the cats next door simply moved in.

The Marion Island example proves the vacuum effect while it also proves the impossibility of permanently clearing an area of an entire target population. Municipalities engaged in any type of catch and kill efforts are fighting a cruel, endless, losing battle against nature that is a gross waste of taxpayer dollars and ends hundreds of lives.

Years of failed catch and kill policies prove this method’s ineffectiveness
Animal control officers all over the country have observed the ineffectiveness of lethal methods firsthand through years of misguided policy.

Joan Brown, President and CEO of the Humane League of Lancaster County (PA), says that her organization made the switch to Trap-Neuter-Return when they started to realize that they were never making any headway with catch and kill.

“I finally went to the board and said, ‘Where in our mission statement does it say euthanize? Because all we’re doing is taking [feral cats] in to euthanize them…we’re not only doing an inhumane thing, we’re actually contributing to the problem, creating a vacuum effect that will just be filled again—and probably at a faster rate than when we started,’” says Brown.

Brown says that they noticed it was a never-ending and growing problem, draining their resources and their morale: “At the very least, we were standing still. That was clear, and it seemed as if we were running forward, but actually moving backward.”

Other animal control and shelter organizations nationwide have also taken a stand after acknowledging the failed results of their catch and kill efforts. Maricopa County, Arizona’s animal control website says, “We have over 20 years of documented proof that traditional ways of dealing with feral cats don’t work. The catch and kill method of population control (trap a cat, bring it to a shelter, ask that the cat be euthanized), has not reduced the number of feral cats. The cat may be gone, but now there is room for another cat to move in…So, catch and kill actually makes the problem worse.” And the Humane Society of Ochocos (Oregon) agrees: “…[W]e know now, that more than 30 years of trapping and killing cats has done nothing to reduce the feral cat population.”

The National Animal Control Association amended its feral cat policy in 2008 to be more supportive of Trap-Neuter-Return, in part because, as then president Mark Kumpf put it, “[i]t’s recognizing that in some cases, certain jurisdictions and communities are more interested in maintaining a stable cat population than they are in simply bailing the ocean with a thimble.”
He continues: “What we’re saying is the old standard isn’t good enough anymore. As we’ve seen before, there’s no department that I’m aware of that has enough money in their budget to simply practice the old capture and euthanize policy; nature just keeps having more kittens.”
If catch and kill had any long-term effect on cat populations, animal control officers nationwide—and their leadership organizations—would have observed it by now. Instead, they are reading the writing on the wall and switching to the method that works.

Trap-Neuter-Return is the responsible, humane method of care for feral cats
Trap-Neuter-Return stabilizes feral cat populations. The cats are humanely trapped, vaccinated, and neutered, so no more kittens will be born. They are then returned to their original location to live out their lives in their outdoor home. Not only is Trap-Neuter-Return the humane option for feral cats, it also improves cats’ lives by relieving them of the stresses of mating and pregnancy. In the end, unlike catch and kill, TNR works.

It’s time to stop the killing.
Cities and shelters across America have experienced great success with Trap-Neuter-Return—it is now official policy for feral cats in Washington, DC, Baltimore, and Chicago. It’s time to learn from past mistakes and move forward instead of going around in circles—it’s time to stop fighting the endless battle of catch and kill and protect cats’ lives.

03/13/2024

Today I went down to investigate a momma cat and her 4 kittens that live right in the middle of the Central Bus Station in Grand Rapids.
I spent 3 hours trying everything to get her to go into a trap with no success. She did have a full belly though.

Tonight her usual feeder is not putting out any food in hopes that tomorrow morning she will be hungry enough to enter a trap finally so I can then crawl in or trap her babies 🤞

I truly fear for their lives. I hope I can get them all safe and into my care 🥺

03/10/2024

03/10/2024

Babies!!!! 🥰

03/10/2024

It's taken a month but totally worth it to be able to pet 2 out of 3 of these majestic floofs 😍
🎉😁😁😁

03/02/2024

Well that was a successful day of trapping! 🥰
I know for sure I got one baby maker! No more babies for you lol miss 😌

03/02/2024

New location! One out of 7 trapped so far.
This orange one is teasing me 😂

02/29/2024

Back to your home guys 🥰

02/28/2024

Saturday I waited for hours hoping these cats would go under the trap to eat. And after hours the home owner pulled up and as soon as he put the food under there, here they came! Flocking all at once!

So he's my ticket this weekend to get the other 5 🤞

Then I can move onto the other 4 colonies I need to start trapping at!

I'm getting excited the closer I get to closing out this colony 😁