[Vision2020] Caturday (September 11, 2021)

Sat Sep 11 05:34:51 PDT 2021

 A group of cat lovers is up against the clock in finding a new home for a colony of feral cats who stand in the way of South Bend's plans to build a pedestrian path. Can anyone here help these kitties on Caturday?

Courtesy of the South Bend Tribune (South Bend, Oregon) at:

https://www.southbendtribune.com/story/news/2021/09/09/south-bend-indiana-coal-line-trail-project-displace-colony-feral-cats/5775258001/?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

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Pedestrian path project threatens homes of feral cat colony in South Bend

SOUTH BEND — A group of cat lovers is up against the clock in finding a new home for a colony of feral cats who stand in the way of South Bend’s plans to build the Coal Line Trail on the northwest side.

The group says the cats have lived for decades in a ravine near the shopping center at Portage and Elwood avenues. Barbara Vida, manager of the center’s Burton’s Laundry, had been feeding and caring for them until she died in 2016. Following Vida’s death, a group of volunteers assembled to take up her work.

The nonprofit Meow Mission has trapped, spayed and neutered, and vaccinated the cats, and the volunteers, coordinating through the roughly 100-member Cat Colony of Portage Road Facebook page, take turns feeding and taking them to veterinarians when needed.

“There’s never a time when those cats are not taken care of,” group member Debbie McAllister-Dake said. “That’s their home. They’ve lived there, some of them, all of their lives. To uproot them is going to take massive amounts of work, to try and, number one, find someplace that’s safe, not only from the elements but from cars and people.” 

Before Vida died, she built a small shelter for a newly born litter of kittens. After her death, McAllister-Dake, her husband, Todd, and their then-3-year-old granddaughter, Anastasia, built wooden shelters with sealed roofing material for the kittens, and others lined them with foam board and reflective insulation. The shelters, which protect the cats from the elements and predators, now stand in the way of an Americans With Disabilities Act-compliant ramp that the city will build to access the new 12-foot-wide path.

Construction on the trail began Aug. 23. It will largely follow the abandoned Notre Dame & Western coal line, ultimately connecting Western Avenue to the East Bank Trail at Angela Boulevard. The first phase will run from Lincoln Way West to Riverside Drive, at a cost of $1.6 million, with work expected to finish by year’s end. It is being funded 80% by federal money and 20% by city dollars.
McAllister-Dake, who now lives in New Carlisle but still takes her turns caring for the cats with Anastasia, said it’s “ridiculous” that the city is requiring the shelters be moved by Monday when work in the ravine area begins.

Being more flexible would “show that the city of South Bend cares about everybody in their city and not just the people, not just money,” McAllister-Dake said. “By them wanting to take those out of there shows us a whole different side of the city I really don’t think they want us to see.”

Retiree Diana Szilagyi, who feeds the seven cats almost daily, said she and Meow Mission President Jodi Aker met on Wednesday with city Construction Manager Toy Villa. She said Villa was “very gracious.” She and Aker said they realize the city project will proceed, so they hope by Monday to find someone who will allow the cats and their shelters to be moved to their land.

The best place to move the shelters, Aker said, would be a fenced industrial lot behind the shopping center. Aker said she has begun trying to contact the property’s out-of-state owner. If the owner won’t consent and no one else offers their land, the city’s contractor will remove the shelters next week and the cats will be left to disperse on their own.

“Displacing them is going to be extremely traumatic for them,” Aker said. “For them, it will be devastating because they’ve lost their habitat. These are super-nice shelters. They are very well-insulated. They’ve survived the Polar Vortex for crying out loud. Once that equipment comes in, they’re going to be scattered and scared.”

The city administration declined to be interviewed. Instead, spokeswoman Cara Grabowski issued a written statement saying the city is working with Meow Mission to relocate the shelters.

The colony includes black long-haired cats Midnight and Shadow; yellow tabbies Butterscotch and Gizmo, a black shorthair named Isis, Salem, a “dumped” cat, and another gray cat who was abandoned there recently but has yet to be named.

Even though they have been fed by people since birth, the feral cats aren’t likely adoptable as house pets, Szilagyi said. Only two of them, Midnight and Butterscotch, will let her pet them, and none will be held.

“These cats aren’t street-savvy enough,” she said. “They wouldn’t know how to maneuver in the street. They’ll probably get themselves killed.”

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Photo . . .

http://www.tomandrodna.com/MoscowCares/Caturday/Caturday_091121_01.jpg

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“Caturday” by Linus Petit
http://www.tomandrodna.com/MoscowCares/Caturday/Caturday_by_Linus_Petit.mp3

Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)
http://moscowcares.net/

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

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