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lengthy Interstate 5, south of downtown Seattle, intricate tunnels weave their means by means of brush and blackberry bushes. The tunnels are established by feral cats — residing and breeding in colonies alongside the greenbelt.
On a recent Friday afternoon in March, volunteer Morgan Sandys hiked up a wooded path carrying each moist and dry cat meals in a big yellow pack on her again. She’s solid a bond with two separate close by colonies — coming a couple of times per week to feed and water them, in addition to socialize them to people.
“I had no idea there were just cats out in the world breeding in bushes,” Sandys mentioned.
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She’s at all times liked animals and commenced volunteering with varied cat rescues as a youngster. She says there’s one thing particular about profitable the belief of a feral cat. It’s one thing that she wouldn’t have been in a position to obtain had she not been feeding them.
“It feels good to get a familiarity with these animals that, as you can see, won’t get close to people.”
Now, she volunteers with The Alley Cat Project, a non-profit that makes a speciality of TNR: lure, neuter, return. Their aim is to scale back overpopulation in feral cat colonies.
Sandys says the work is intrinsically rewarding — she’s seen what can occur when colonies spiral uncontrolled and the cats are preventing for sources.
Deborah Sorensen began The Alley Cat Project in 2010 after years of volunteering with the Seattle Humane Society. She realized throughout her time volunteering {that a} excessive proportion of the animals euthanized have been feral cats. According to the Seattle Humane Society, there are roughly 70 million feral cats within the United States.
“So, we organized and became a non-profit,” Sorensen mentioned. “Somebody has to do it.”
“TNR works,” she mentioned. “We’ve seen the decline.”
According to Sorensen, the bump within the street for feral cats right here has been linked to the homelessness disaster.
“That caused the number of feral colonies to sharply increase overall, but in very specific areas.”
Those areas are what they name “sizzling spots.”
“In the last seven or eight years, I have to say, the Georgetown and SoDo areas where there are a lot of large encampments, those encampments have produced huge numbers,” Sorensen mentioned.
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For a interval, Sandys was unhoused.
“I was homeless here in SoDo and I camped out in an RV just two blocks from here,” she mentioned, at one of many colonies she cares for. “That’s part of how I knew about this site.”
Her day job is in homeless outreach — connecting folks with the sources and companies that they should get shelter.
“There’s a lot of synergy between the two,” she mentioned.
In addition to caring for the colonies, Sandys additionally fosters pets at her home in West Seattle.
“I know how hard it was when I was homeless trying to take care of my animals,” she mentioned.
She’s now fostering a kitten for a girl who not too long ago entered transitional housing and couldn’t carry her pet along with her.
“It makes me feel good that she’s going to be able to get her cat back,” she mentioned. “And that she didn’t have to choose between keeping her cat and getting stable shelter.”
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t one of many colonies underneath an I-5 overpass, there are tiny, cat-sized homes lined up close to a feeder. The feeder is stocked weekly by Sandys, with a barrier to maintain the raccoons out.
“I called this place ‘the kitten factory’ because it just cranked them out,” she mentioned.
At this particular colony, volunteers have trapped, neutered and returned over 75 feral cats in recent years. Now, the colony has a few dozen cats left, they usually’re all mounted.
“They’re not going to be repopulating,” Sorensen mentioned. “Whereas they would have repopulated exponentially here into infinity probably because there’s so much cover and blackberry bushes for them to breed and have kittens in.”
“This might be the first summer with no kittens here,” Sandys added. “And it makes me really proud to say that.”
“It’s not exponential exactly because a high percentage of the kittens born out there are going to die,” Sorensen clarified.
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The kittens don’t have an amazing probability even when they do survive previous the weening course of. But the older feral cats are very resourceful, Sorensen mentioned.
“They know how to survive. Not that we shouldn’t do all we can to help them, but they do come up with the most amazing solutions. I’ve found through experience that they find their way in the world. Like most wildlife, they will find a way to survive.”
When requested if there was one factor that Sandys needed the general public to know, she talked about the sheer variety of kittens born open air that she’s seen die.
“God damnit, spay and neuter your pets,” she mentioned.
