“So this is probably our biggest room,” Wood said. “We’ve got 16 kittens and three moms, so it’s going to stink in here.”“We’re down to three empty kennels and I’m a little concerned because we’ve got to go out and get some more today,” she said. Later, she opens another room to a wall of quarantined adult cats, waiting to get better and get adopted.
Wood said an extreme number of cats like this can start with just two unaltered adults. Cats in the same litter can breed with each other, and it can snowball from there. The cost to spay and neuter — and care — for that many cats would quickly become unmanageable. She said this is the largest number of cats she’s seen in a rescue situation in her ten years of working there. And this influx of cats means the rescue won’t be able to take more for a while, so people hoping to surrender a cat may have to wait longer than usual.
“We work with Paws and Claws in Skagway and HARK in Haines, and even have sent cats up to Fairbanks,” Wood said. “So if we get to that point, we can talk to them about that. You know, if they’re here for months, obviously other places will take some.”They’ve had to shuffle cats around to make room to isolate the sick animals, but the undersized ventilation system means the other cats in the building aren’t fully protected, according to Rick Driscoll, the executive director at the rescue.