Woman Relinquishes 42 Cats To Local Shelter

Woman Relinquishes 42 Cats To Local Shelter - this is a cross-post.

This is rather a unique cat hoarding case although cat hoarding happens anywhere.  There are many reasons for it but sometimes it is simply a matter of a person getting in over their head - being involved in cat rescue without proper cognisance of the complexities and financial burdens of it can end in catastrophe. On other occasions the person may be slightly mentally ill.

In this instance a black lady - and I mentioned that because it is the first time that I have noticed a black lady as a cat hoarder - voluntarily relinquished or abandoned her 42 cats to the local cat shelter. So, right away we can say that this is not all bad because the person obviously saw the light albeit very late in the day that she was not coping and needed help.

Unfortunately, as mentioned, she saw the folly of her ways much too late in the day and after many of her cats had become desperately ill; many with eye infections due to URIs which had destroyed or severely damaged the eyes of the cats.

It seems that she wanted to simply dump the cats outside the cat shelter which incidentally is in Newark, New Jersey, USA. The lady didn't want to be noticed but as it happens she was photographed and became irritate unsurprisingly. Above are some screenshots from a video on a news media website.  The cats in the photographs are the ones that were in relatively good health.  Many are still being intensively cared for as I understand it.

Scott Crawford, the shelter assistant director, made the excellent point that all this lady needed to have done in the past was to have come to them for assistance but for some inexplicable reason she delayed.  Often hoarders are often blind to what they are doing.

Although it may not have happened, I suspect the police are involved in tracking her down in order to press charges for animal cruelty under state animal cruelty legislation.  However, I also suspect that there won't be that much motivation to prosecute and convict this lady.  Where the cause of cat hoarding is perhaps a mild mental illness then it could be argued that criminal prosecutions are inappropriate whilst some sort of psychotherapy would be preferable but in any event she should not be allowed to care for cats or perhaps any other animal again.