OKALOOSA COUNTY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) – A surprising discover: a mom cat and her 5 kittens stuffed right into a duffle bag together with a bag of cat meals, deserted in a resort room in Pensacola for housekeepers to seek out.
“One of our staff members took a phone call from a hotel in Pensacola from one of their housekeepers,” stated Nancy Schimmer, government director at Save Our Cats and Kittens Rescue (SOCKS). “They had a situation where they found this momma cat with these five kittens in a duffle bag that someone left behind in the hotel after they checked out.”
Schimmer stated SOCKS workers instantly started coordinating learn how to get the cat and kittens to their rescue in Fort Walton Beach.
“They were calling all the rescues that they knew of,” Schimmer stated. “They reached out to everywhere they could. They couldn’t get anybody to say yes, but they reached out to SOCKS and we were able to say yes.”
Schimmer stated they had been joyful they might say sure to bringing on this mom and her kittens, however that’s not all the time the case. With “kitten season” simply starting, Schimmer stated discovering deserted or stray cats and kittens is frequent.
“We have people drop them off here in a box with holes in it, or a box taped shut, or different things like that. It happens every day in every place that does rescue,” she stated,
SOCKS workers stated a essential a part of battling overpopulation with cats is spaying and neutering.
However, Schimmer stated Okaloosa County ordinances presently don’t enable for folks to do “TNR”, or lure, neuter, launch. As the title suggests, the motion entails trapping a stray cat, taking it to be spayed or neutered, after which releasing it again in order that it can not reproduce.
So, the SOCKS crew is on a mission to get the wording modified within the ordinance so organizations and people can all get cats spayed and neutered so there are fewer cats sooner or later that find yourself in these conditions of abandonment or homelessness.
“Right now, a lot of people are hamstrung by what they can do because of that ordinance that hasn’t been changed since the 80s, I think,” Schimmer stated. “We have one ready to go, it’s been written, it’s just been sitting around for about four years. And the county doesn’t really get- the commissioners don’t understand the problem, the depth of the problem, and that we have a solution ready to go.”
Read the edited ordinance SOCKS workers are hoping for the county to implement beneath:
Schimmer asks for anybody with feedback on the ordinance to make your voice heard.
As for the mom cat discovered within the Pensacola resort room, she has affectionately been named “Duffle Bag” and her kittens are “Travel Pro”, “Samsonite”, “Brics”, “Swissgear”, and “Merax”.
They went right into a foster home Friday, the place they may keep because the presently less-than-two-week-old kittens develop. Then within the subsequent few months, they are going to be up for adoption at SOCKS.
Copyright 2024 WJHG. All rights reserved.
