12/24/2022
Sometimes rescue is terribly heartbreaking.
After being informed about a blind cat in trouble out in the 28-degree cold at a colony in a commercial/residential area of Anderson, NCC cofounder Sarah hurried onsite.
There, in the midst of a dozen sagging and decaying cardboard boxes and other detritus, some covered with shredded tarps, the ground strewn with garbage and a few small piles of kibble, she found Methuselah — a blind, emaciated, longhaired tabby feral boy.
Unable to catch him then, she returned yesterday morning, nabbed him, and took him immediately to the vet, where he was deemed dangerously emaciated and dehydrated, with a large abscess on his neck… and end-stage kidney failure (exacerbated by lack of water).
It’s a challenge to treat even a healthier, younger friendly cat for these life-threatening crises, but to subject a blind, ancient feral who has good reason to fear and hate the human touch would be sheer cruelty. Treatment would have bought Methuselah only a few more weeks of suffering, with subcutaneous fluids, wound cleansing, and IV antibiotics... all compounded by the terror and pain of human interaction.
So we sadly decided to give poor Methuselah the gentle send-off, and the vet set him free from his suffering. His ashes will be scattered in the NCC graveyard, and we’ll plant flowers on his final resting place.
A junkyard “colony” without regular feeding, water, site maintenance and monitoring not only endangers the cats it purports to rescue, it attracts complaints to law enforcement, which can end up in mass euthanization of the cats... and legal repercussions that can threaten even the unrelated and responsible rescue community.
But this is also a community problem, from punitive local laws criminalizing cat colonies and their feeders to uninformed, indifferent or irresponsible citizens who don’t give their free-roaming cats adequate food or medical care — including spay and neuter.
The national veterinary shortage contributes to the chaos — at a local level, an inadequate and underfunded shelter system has recently been without a single veterinarian in Redding for the last six months. Even now, its spay/neuter appointments are backed up for months. Costs for basic care, including vax and spay and neuter, are also far beyond the budget of most locals. And many vets in Shasta County don’t even treat feral cats, so they have even more minimal spay and neuter options — often none at all. The dysfunction is capsulized by the fact that citizens who go to the effort of trapping a feral to TNR —trap-neuter-release — are often told just to “let them go"... and the shelter won't even take a look at the animal.
Many of these factors contributed to the tragedy of Methuselah’s sad life and forced exit… and sadly, there are so many more Methuselahs in our community.
Please honor his memory with us by standing up for feral colonies and TNR at your local city council and board of supervisors meetings. If enough of us show up and voice our concerns, TPTB might start to listen, care… and fund feral spay and neuter —the essential first step toward sane and humane colony management. This happens in many other poor, rural communities in California — and it could here, if we pester local lawmakers to make it a priority.
Please spread the word, cat village friends. In this way, you’ll be honoring Methuselah’s memory and helping other cats to avoid a tragic life… and death.
Rest in Peace, brave old boy. We wish we could have been there for you long ago, when it could have made a difference in your life.
