A cat recuperates after surgery. AlleyCats is looking for volunteers to join their organization. (Photo supplied)
A new South Okanagan organization dedicated to finding good homes for cats and kittens is looking for volunteers in Osoyoos to join their organization.
AlleyCATS Alliance is a non-profit society dedicated to providing rescue, rehabilitation, medical care and adoption to feral orphaned cats and kittens throughout the Okanagan Valley.
“We concentrate on three programs, including release and rescue, spay and neuter programs and our trap neuter release program,’ said December Van den Berg, manager of the AlleyCats Alliance, which has its head office in Penticton. “We’ve been successful in finding hundreds of forever homes for cats and kittens across the Okanagan Valley.”
There are feral colonies all over the Okanagan, including several in Osoyoos, due to people not spaying and neutering their animals and then letting them outside, she said.
Once they start procreating they can grow into a large colony very quickly. More often than not there is a lack of food and so they end up starving, cold, and often sick too – once a disease gets into a colony it spreads very quickly, said Van den Berg.
The mandate of AlleyCATS Alliance is to locate colonies, trap all of the cats if possible, have them vetted, spayed, neutered, whatever else is necessary, hold onto them for a suitable recovery period, and then re-release them back to the same area where they came from, she said.
If some of the cats are friendly and adoptable we will try to find them homes, but in many cases the cats are feral and we simply don’t have the resources to rehabilitate them, so putting them back is the best option, she said.
“We make sure there is someone at the site willing to feed the colony and provide some kind of shelter,” she said.
Volunteers always make the neighbourhood aware of our plan to trap before we go in, so if people have owned cats they can bring them inside. No animals are harmed during the process, she said.
Volunteers will deliver a letter to homes in the area or post signs at communal areas and they also do press releases.
AlleyCats is looking for volunteers in Osoyoos who would be interested in organizing regular spay-neuter clinics in this community, said Van den Berg.
“We need someone to work with the veterinary community in Osoyoos and volunteers in the area because spay and neuter clinics are the best way to get the cat control problem in every community under control,” she said.
AlleyCats Alliance holds many fundraising events across the Okanagan Valley and are applying for grants to provide funding to organize spay and neuter clinics in smaller communities like Osoyoos, she said.
“We get calls all the time about the number of feral colonies in Osoyoos,” she said. “We know it is a problem in that community. Getting the problem under control all starts with organizing regular spay and neuter clinics and our goal is to get this organized as quickly as possible.”
There are animal lovers in every community in this country and Van den Berg is confident that there will be good response in the call for volunteers from Osoyoos.
“We can use as much help as we can get,” she said.
There are volunteers willing to transport sick cats to and from Penticton to get appropriate veterinary care, she said.
AlleyCats Alliance organizes different fundraising events throughout the year and can always use more help, she said.
Every penny donated goes directly to helping the plight of cats and kittens in our region, she said.
For more information, you can contact the organization at www.alleycatsalliance.org.
You can also call them at 1-250-492-8195.
KEITH LACEY
Osoyoos Times
