by Fredric L. Rice
Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2006 at 10:42 PM
frice@skeptictank.org
In the San Gabrial Mountains above Azusa, California, 11 or more domestic cats have been abandoned because their care givers have been evicted from the Camp Follows area, leaving a lot of cats behind to starve.
The San Gabriel Valley Tribune newspaper reported two weeks ago about the evictions of the individuals living at the Camp Follows area of the San Gabriel Mountains along West Fork Road -- this is off of Highway 39 which used to lead up to Crystal Lake before the Williams Fire and the Curve Fire closed the main highway.
The people have been evicted because the USFS wants to clean out the Camp Follows area after numerous individuals made their homes there despite the USFS rules which allows visitors a maximum of only 21 days in the mountains. Since many people were living there for 7 years or more, they acquired cats.
Since the people have been evicted and are now homeless, many of them are living out of their automobiles. Rather than attempt to live out of their cars with their cats, and rather than take the cats to the animal shelter where they would be gased to death after about 2 weeks, many of the now homeless people abandoned their cats up there to fend for themselves.
Currently there's a woman at the Camp Follows area who has taken to feeding the cats however she's being evicted to and is only there because she refused to leave. Very shortly the Sheriffs will be coming to physically drag her away and dump her onto the streets, leaving the 11 or more domesticated cats up there without food.
I've been calling around to organizations that handle domestic and feral cat problems and every organization I've contacted so far are full up with cats. DELTA currently has an overwhelming cat population of over 1600 cats so they're unable to assist. Feral Cat Alliance performs catch-nuter/spay-release programs and is unable to assist with this domestic problem.
Assistence or suggestions is desperatly needed. If you have an organization or knows of an organization that can help, please email me as soon as possible.
Thanks!