Cat explosion packs shelters
With summer comes kitten season and an overabundance of cats at
the local animal shelter.
Cat explosion packs shelters
With summer comes kitten season and an overabundance of cats at the local animal shelter.
And while there are several no-kill groups willing to take dogs, most are at capacity for cats.
According to Animal Control Supervisor Julie Carreiro the San Benito County Animal Shelter located at the west end of South Street in Hollister works with many different non-profit rescue organizations all over California, but many of those organizations can’t take any more cats. The only alternative is euthanasia.
Further, Carreiro said many of the cats that come in have upper respiratory disease, and rather than treating them, the local shelter’s practice is to put them down to prevent the spread of disease.
To give an idea of how much larger the cat population is than the dog population, the Hollister Animal Shelter currently has 55 animals in detention, 37 of them cats.
According to Animal Control Officer Assistant Anna Patterson the shelter gets around 30 cats per week. After they are captured they are confined to cages until they are adopted or euthanized.
With the lack of manpower the biggest need of the shelter is volunteers. Some shelters have as many as 10-12 full or part-time employees, but the county shelter has one full-time animal control supervisor, one assistant, two officers and a temporary employee.
The hours of operation are also affected by the minimal staff. Many shelters in this area are open later and even offer Saturday hours, Hollister’s shelter is only open from 9:30 to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The shelter staff maintains two cages at Raven’s Pet Safari on San Benito Street that they keep stocked with as many as eight kittens at a time, so if someone wants to adopt a cat when the shelter is closed they can adopt from the pet store.
“That gives the cats a higher chance for adoption,” Patterson said. “Still, it’s harder to adopt out cats since there aren’t as many rescues that aren’t already full.”
