The current struggle is to get the SF SPCA to direct their Community Cat program to contact volunteer trappers when any kittens are found, regardless of age and whether or not the Mom is present. If the SF SPCA is unable or unwilling to foster homeless (possibly feral) Moms with kittens, then there is a community of experienced volunteer fosters willing to take them in for a month or two. Their experience has shown that feral Mom cats do quite well in a quiet foster home.
The following article, published in what is now MarinaTimes.com, describes how the SF SPCA, with their tens of millions in donations, didn’t provide the care San Franciscans expected back in 2009. We think they’re letting us down yet again.
September 2009 Cover Story:
HOW THE SAN FRANCISCO SPCA LET US DOWN
By Susan Dyer Reynolds
Photos by Jane Richey
“…At a January 8, 2009 meeting of the Commission of Animal Control and Welfare (ACW) – which advises the Board of Supervisors regarding animal issues in the City – animal care supervisor Eric Zuercher presented some startling statistics: While the SF/SPCA took 122 dogs from ACC in 2007-08, independent rescues took far more. Grateful Dogs Rescue, which gets 80 percent of its dogs from ACC, took 141 in 2007, and 146 in just the first three quarters of 2008. Rocket Dog Rescue, which, Zuercher stated deals with the toughest cases (pit bulls, medical issues), took 111. Other groups also stepped in – Muttville takes older dogs, Wonderdog takes a lot of small dogs. The 122 taken by the SF/SPCA represents just 14 percent of the total dogs they took in 2008.
Where cats are concerned, the SF/SPCA fairs better, with 73 percent of its cats coming from ACC in 2008, though that is down from 84 percent in 2007. The percentage of cats taken from other shelters jumped from 16 percent in 2007 to 25 percent in 2008.
Toni’s Kitty Rescue saved 200 kittens in just four months, all of which would have been euthanized otherwise because ACC does not adopt out kittens under eight weeks of age (and the SF/SPCA won’t take them). Lana Bajsel’s Give Me Shelter gets 95 percent of its cats and kittens from ACC – they currently have 100 cats in their system on an $80,000-a-year budget, while the SF/SPCA has just 170. Without the rescues, Zuercher concludes, many more animals would have died…”