April 17, 2024 • 27 mins
Heidi Systo tempers the stray cat surplus in NYC community.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Good morning, though it is actually one two pm. I
am just currently sitting down with my first cup of
coffee for the day, though so feels like the start
of my day. So far today I have fed all
the kittens and cats, scooped everyone's litter box.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
And gave everyone their meds.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I need to before we go trap prep all of
the crates for the new kittens we're going to be
bringing in today. Yeah, I'm excited for this trapping today.
It's a location where we've already been trapping on the sidewalk,
but then recently got connected with a feeder next door
and discovered that he's feeding actually a lot more cats
in his backyard. So far, we've trapped six adults and
(00:47):
two kittens from this location.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
This is finally a show about a cat wrangler in Brooklyn.
Heidi Sisto documents her work with a tea that catches
stray cats and kittens on her Instagram Heidi Wrangles Cats.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Hello, So what we're listening to currently is some kittens
that just got brought to me that are confused and
crying when.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
They're little crates. Heidi Wrangles Cats is you can call
it an organization, but it's really just me that focuses
on TNR trap new to return fostering adoptions, all with
the big picture goal of reducing the overpopulation crisis that
we currently have in Brooklyn, New York. The overpopulation crisis
(01:43):
is a man made problem. Cats are not native to
the streets of New York. It all started with people
living in a city having pet cats, not having those
cats fixed, and then having those cats then subsequently live outdoors.
From there, those cats bread and then bread with their offspring,
(02:03):
and their offspring breeding with their offspring, and all of
a sudden you have an explosion in the population. The
average female cat can have up to four litters per year,
with litter sizes ranging between three to seven kittens on average.
So if you do the math, that can become hundreds
(02:23):
of cats very quickly. But also built into that there
is a very high mortality rate. Up to seventy five
percent of kittens born outdoors will die before six months
of age, so it's so much suffering, and even with
that high mortality rate, the population is still exploding. But yeah,
I mean most rescuers, though, we're just individual people and
(02:45):
we work together. We share resources, like on this recent
trapping project, the other rescuer I'm working with, Suza has
like a great basement for holding all of the feral
cats before and after their Spain eater surgery. I love
kittens and I have a huge, you know, soft spot
for kittens. If I do have any sort of like
(03:06):
quote unquote specialty, it is with kittens specifically. Even though
I do a little bit of everything, the kittens are
really like the thing that I go crazy for. Hid
how did you hear about this particular taste? It was me.
I am an a rescue group with Heidi. We're like
(03:29):
a collective of a bunch of independent rescuers. And someone
contacted me on Instagram. Wow, said, my friend loves on
the Street and they have a prod colony, are front
managed and there are a bunch of kittens and we've
been sitting outside out front for a couple of months
and we would not get to the rest of the kittens.
Wou and wait and they wouldn't show up. And so
we figured.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
And this presumably Australian thing, oh Stope was like, you
should talk to that guy, and so we just.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Knocked on this started talking to We literally just went
to this man's house at nine thirty at night, and
we're like, do you think cats? Ye? Hello, good Joanna you?
Speaker 5 (04:21):
Oh good God?
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Do you frequently do count rescue from your home?
Speaker 5 (04:27):
Oh? I love you?
Speaker 6 (04:29):
Police at the captains.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Colin, have you been speaking and helping strays from the neighborhood?
Speaker 6 (04:42):
I just started if I'm not a pet person before,
actually people, I do my best to help them them
then the best I can't.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
I can't do everything, but I just do the best
I can't. My life, I try, I do. Yes, my
pretty babies, oh my next picture, pretty babies the next
or a yeah, A lot of that.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, Gilbert has seen a lot of you have.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
Look at the window. They screaming it, but they can't.
They just stuck together. You know.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I had to come with my glove in the back.
That's really hard. Someone else told us about pats right
over there.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
Get this, like pl one that one thing.
Speaker 6 (05:28):
Just started with two cats five six between the all starts.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
But they were all going like two plus cats in
a trap. So we're gonna have to after we trap
everyone sort of redistribute and separate adults and kittens.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
So we'll put the food in the back of the
traps and then we'll have sardines for something a little
extra extra, we're gonna hold This is like the my
favorite way of traps called the bottle string technique.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Do you see that? Like bottle with the strings, use
of bottles to hold the doors open. We thread them
all to that window, we set them, we run inside.
We watched from the window, and then when as many
cats as possible are all in the traps at the
same time, we pull all the strings and all the
doors close at once. Probably will take more than one
(06:18):
pull obviously to get all the cats because there's a
few full five strings.
Speaker 6 (06:27):
Okay, asking me like, how are you going gag the
team effort as you can.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
With each other exactly. Yeah, this is my favorite of
trap is with trap training. Get the cats used to
the traps also because they know Gilbert. But they're already
pretty trusting, Like this is where they eat every single day,
so they're pretty good them. Do you want to When
(07:03):
I was in you know, high school, imagining my passions,
it was always in like fashion and photography. Never thought
that cat rescue would be my future or my profession
by any means. My parents have cats. My dad's a
cat guy. He's a cat dad. He's like done the
thing where he's like turn them into dogs and like
train them to walk on leashes and teaches them to
(07:25):
do tricks and they can like shake and stand for
treats because that's just like my dad's energy. So yeah,
so he's definitely like a cat man. But I was
never like, oh, this crazy cat person at all. So yeah,
so it's all started with me just seeing cats on
the street in my neighborhood and feeling bad about it
(07:47):
and scooping them and bringing them into my house and
then not really knowing what to do but figuring it out.
And then yeah, from there it's grown into what I
kind of jokingly refer to as a cat empire that
I run o y the traps right now, he's just
(08:14):
staring at us. Don't look at him. I got a bunch, Ok,
we got a few. So right now we're covering the
(08:37):
traps with sheets to keep everybody calm, chills them out,
less stressful for them. So basically, the adults go back
to Susas and we have more spain Ud appointments tomorrow
for them, and then the kittens come back to my place.
(08:58):
Can you grab the one that's nothing.
Speaker 5 (09:03):
At any right here, I'm right y, I'm right over
right best ya m I'm daddy, I'm right here, I'm
right here, I'm right here, I'm right here. Go ahead,
I'm right here. I just don't wanna be hurried down.
Say I don't want it. Gonna be safe and things
out the home they eating? Can they gonna eating good?
Speaker 1 (09:21):
You know, how do you feel watching them getting?
Speaker 5 (09:24):
I fell so bad? I wanna cry so bad, I say,
I w I really really, I really I feel a couple.
I really do. But I said, fist stop for him,
though you know I full stop from him. I mean no,
I really do. I'm really full side for Soody, full
sick for him. But long needs safe. I'm good, Yeah,
I can, I got the best good. I'm good. Oh,
I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm a best him
(09:45):
dog lo I ship every day I feel every day.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
You know.
Speaker 5 (09:51):
I'm good, I'm good.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (09:56):
I'll be okay. I go up here. You're doing a
past that you.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Have you thought about keeping one as a pet?
Speaker 5 (10:03):
I remember here, it's gonna be Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
You know.
Speaker 6 (10:08):
You don't like cats. He basically told me, like what,
we'll come here and take it. Friends, Oh that's a
fat wed Yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:24):
Exactly, Red yea.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
So do you think the same thing will happen again
next year?
Speaker 6 (10:28):
You'll take care of them call have them good, even
though it is a little heartbreaking.
Speaker 5 (10:35):
I will. They're just going to have such happy, love
filled lives and someone's home like that.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Like that good work. So okay, so put me in
the group chat.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
I would. I'm totally happy to not go to CAF tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
The people who feed cats usually get very emotionally attached
to them, for sure. There's It's interesting the people who
feed cats and the people who do have rescue are
usually not the same and are usually very different. You'd
think it'd be one and the same, right, Like the
people who feed the cats are the people who trap
the cats and the people who rescue cats. But actually
it's really not. But yeah, definitely, the feeders tend to
(11:15):
be a lot more emotionally invested. It does tend to
be that a lot of feeders are just like oftentimes
lower income people who have lived in the neighborhood for
a really long time, who just see the cats every
single day in their backyards. And then you know, trappers
are just like bored white ladies with a lot of
free time and a lot of you know, dispensable income.
(11:39):
That's like the stereotypes I would say, there's obviously rich
feeders and trappers. Who are you know? I mean, I
do think though, we kind of start from very similar
places of like just seeing a cat on the street
and feeling compassionate about it and you know, feeding it,
wanting to take care of it. So I think we
(12:00):
all start from the same place. And then I think
the people who end up doing cat rescue end up
just like branching out beyond that and you know, doing
tn R doing rescue. And then I just think as
time goes on, the more you do it, the more
you do get like a little bit more calloused, and
and so you kind of like you you veeer in
(12:22):
like different directions a little bit. The people right now,
I just need to be realistic about my strength. I
have a BFA and photography. That's why I moved to
New York to pursue and then after college I worked
(12:45):
for eight years for an independent women's ward designer. So
all of the photography for the website, you know, handling
all of the online sales, the marketing, the social media,
worked there for eight years and was doing that wall
rescuing cats the entire time, and it definitely got to
a point where having a full time day job and
(13:07):
rescuing cats was just way too much to do. Four
years ago I really started realizing, like, oh no, I
just want to be a cat rescuer. It's so it's
it's very fulfilling to rescue cats. Actually I went part
time for six months before actually quitting, just to see,
you know, to like slowly basically see if financially I
could do it, and I could. Some months obviously have
(13:31):
been leaner than others. But now it's been a little
over two years since I quit my day job. My
income comes from social media, so that's you know, that's photography,
that's videos, and you know, it's working. It's I'm here,
I'm doing it, I'm paying my bills, and I'm helping cats.
So it scratches the creative side of my brain as
(13:54):
well as like I have a very problem solving brain
as well. So I'm like very fulfilled and very satisfied.
A critical part of cat rescue is working with your community.
Especially as a white person working in neighborhoods of color,
I can't just go around trapping cats because you know
(14:15):
there are indoor outdoor pets, there are bodega cats, or
even just like people like Gilbert if one day all
of his cats went missing and he didn't know why,
like that would crush him. So doing cat rescue responsibly
means working with your community and talking to people, like
I'll knock on a door any day. I definitely get
butterflies right before knocking on a stranger's door, and it's
(14:37):
like that exact moment of like walking up the stairs
to someone's front door, I definitely get really nervous, but
then usually the second they open the door, I just like,
I'm like, hey, like I live in the neighborhood and
I rescue cats. And someone told me that, you know
there's cats on this block, and I was wondering if
you do anything about them, if you feed them, And
then I get pretty comfortable once I'm actually like doing
(14:58):
my spiel 's actually because ninety five percent of the
time people are so receptive and so happy for someone
to be interested in helping the cats. I've had a
small percentage of time where people have been really against
the cats being trapped, and that sucks. I have an
(15:20):
aries Moon so though, so I can actually be extremely
combative if I'm in that situation. I don't back down easily,
so for better or worse. So I've definitely had a
couple of times where I've like people have yelled at me,
and I can I hold my ground pretty easily. But
then other times, like you know, like one time, this
(15:42):
woman was feeding a lot of cats and she was
like a very sweet woman, but she was an Orthodox
Jew and she was extremely against taking away their reproductive rights.
And you know, there was no yelling, nothing like we were.
It was a very civilized conversation. She actually started like
(16:02):
like weeping at the thought of taking away their right
to have children. And she was like crying and very
upset at the idea. And you know, I tried to
explain and at that point, like you just have to
choose your battles. And there are so many cats in
Brooklyn that I can trap somewhere else where there's a
(16:26):
feeder who like is like Gilbert, who's super grateful for
the help. So when I do encounter those situations where
a feeder is really does not want their cats trapped,
you know, you can only do so much because the
people who feed the cats, see the suffering, they see
them dying, they want the cats to get help. They
(16:48):
care about the cats. Also, there is like the stereotype
that cats help the rats, and cats can help the
rat situation a little bit, but cats are not. That's
like another kind of like news thing where cats are
not decimating entire rat populations. So a lot of times
people will be like, don't we don't want the cats fix.
(17:08):
We want more cats because they control the rats and
you know, but and I say, like, okay, well, the
faral cats are coming back, but some of them take
it to the next level where they're like they don't
want them fixed because they just want more and more
cats for the rats. But rats that have ingested rat
poison kills cats.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
And it's really sad. Yeah, it's not, it's all bad news.
It's it's just sort of like a narrow mindset because
then what about the cat's quality of life? You know,
like that matters too, what about all the kittens that
die before adulthood, because it's just not a life. So
that's what I'm trying to do emotionally, one thing that
(17:53):
people don't prepare you for, and also that people don't
really talk about is actually compassion fatigue is a very
real thing with a lot of rescues, where because we
see so much suffering on a daily basis, we become
a little bit numb to it, and I would say
a little bit calloused. We see so many suffering sick
(18:16):
cats and kittens all the time, and it makes you, unfortunately,
you know, a lot less compassionate towards humans. I would say,
because you can only there's only so much that you
can care about. And also in cat rescue, we see
the way humans fail cats, both indirectly and also very directly.
(18:38):
We have a big problem in York with cats getting
dumped and abandoned, people just kicking them out, people moving
and leaving them behind. It's very very common. So seeing
that like direct neglect and cruelty on a daily basis
makes it hard to like people question. Most feral cats
(19:15):
will be like paper weights in the trap, will just
be these scared, little silent rocks. And if you ever
have a cat that's like yowing a bunch and like
thrashing around and being really vocal, that is almost a
guarantee it's a friendly cat, because friendly cats meow. Humans
(19:35):
and feral ones will just be a little paperweights. I
had a roommate for a while who I like asked.
I was like, there's a cat outside, Can I bring
him in? And she was like no. And then when
I moved into the apartment I'm in now because I've
been in my current place for like eleven years or so.
And then the next cat I saw outside, I just
(19:56):
picked it up and carried it home in my arms.
And that actually ended up being someone's lost and it
was Microchip and we well, we were able to reunite
it with its owner, so that was yeah, that was
like my gateway. It was like this long, beautiful, long
haired Calico cat and it was like in the pouring rain,
and it was like yeah, and then it like was
like following us, like up the block and then I
was like, okay, you come with me, and I just
like pitched up and carried it home. And that's how
(20:18):
I rescued my first few cats. Actually, when I would
be in the neighborhood like walking home from like a
party drunk, and I would just like chase cats around
and like grab them in my arms and carry them home.
And then I like reached out to her rescue group
and I was like, I got this cat, what do
I do? Like, can you guys help me get it adopted?
And so then they kind of like took me under
their wing and like taught me about n R. And
(20:40):
so then I just slowly overtimed just sort of like
grew and grew, and then I fostered for for that
rescue that I reached out to, like once the cats
that I had myself found God adopted. But then over
time I kind of grew to the point of now
people foster for me. I'm over the bad mentor though
(21:01):
don't tell anyone that. Like, everyone has their skill sets
in this life, and I'm so grateful to the people
the rescuers who you know, taught me everything that I
know and like mentored me. But when it comes to
like one on one, I'm not good at that. It's
not my skill set. Do you feel like maybe you're
like a cat and you like to operate alone a
little bit? Definitely? I would say it's that's actually a
(21:22):
really common personality trait of cat rescuers. None of us
have social skills, Like we're all definitely like a little
bit introverted. There's exceptions, of course, but a lot of us, yeah,
are like weird introverts who don't have social skills, and
I definitely fit that stereotype of like I, yeah, we
we like animals, and a lot of us don't, like
(21:45):
don't necessarily aren't good with people. That's ups you know,
I appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (21:59):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
This is this book is like eight hundred dollars worth
of can mets. What medicine is it. It's for FIP treatment.
It is the mutation of the feeling coronavirus and it
kills cats, and for a long time it was a
death sentence. But thanks to a new groundbreaking treatment is
(22:24):
eighty four days and it's really expensive. And I have
two cats currently getting FIP treatment, so it's like easily
probably like between the two of them, like five grand
or something. So yeah, so this box of meds alone
is eight hundred bucks and I've been waiting for I
need it, so I'm really glad I got it. But
the thing also about this med is that it's not
like legal in the United States. That's cannot prescribe it.
(22:48):
That's will recommend the treatment, but they cannot prescribe it,
so you have to get it from like the there's
like a Facebook group where you can get like these
black market FIP drugs that are really expensive. So we're like,
I got this box, I got to carry those six kids.
Oh my god, there's something.
Speaker 5 (23:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
My life definitely revolves around cats, and my schedule revolves
around cats. I don't have a nine to five by
any means. And I would say especially, I mean, I
would say my life mainly revolves around like vet appointments,
and I will say when it comes to vet appointments,
I am never late. I am always fifteen minutes early
(23:30):
because I care so much about that, But when it
comes to social things, I am always late. And really
it's to the cats. The cats always just come first,
So I can appairently. I can be on time for cats,
I just can't be on time for anything else. I
have more than usual because I just have taken on
ten kittens in a matter of like forty eight hours,
(23:53):
so we're a little bit more than normal. Hopefully soon
we'll get them ushered out into foster. So I have
a three bedroom apartment, but I only have one roommate,
so I have a cat room. So we're gonna set
everyone up in the cat room right now, which you
will see. I have a roommate for a really long time.
(24:15):
It's only been a cat room for like a year
and a half, and it's been like the best thing ever.
My apartment would be even here if I didn't have
the cats. I definitely have had to like cater my
life to the cats, obviously, but it's important to me
to be clean and be q and this is my home,
like I you know, I take pride in it. I
(24:36):
do still have a social life. I have friends that
are both cat rescuers and I have friends that don't
even particularly like cats. Dating wise, I mean, I am
a very I've been single for a very long time.
I've been single for like a decade. But it's not
really related to the cats. Actually, it's just my personality.
I'm an extremely independent person, so dating has always been
(25:02):
not a priority even before the cats, and definitely the
cats are an issue. One thing, like the line I
always I draw is that I don't like to have
a guy spend the night if I have a litter
box in my bedroom, because a lot of times I
have a cat that'll be isolated to my bedroom for
various reasons, which means there's a litter box in there,
and so that's the way I draw the line. I'll
(25:23):
have a guy over if I don't have a litter
box in my bedroom. But if I do have a
litter box in my bedroom, then no men may enter
my bedroom because I just you know, I just would
be too insecure about it. I know, Pixel or this
desk and all the kittens in the world, I'm not
used to seeing a baby kitten with a cone on
(25:44):
its head. She's the most pitiful kitten of all time.
So Pixel had an abscess on her arm and she
has to be in a cone for two weeks as
a result, and I.
Speaker 7 (25:58):
Can't have her in just a boling cone. We had
to get cute ones for just the cutest, tinyus little
baby cones.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
I mean, come on, it's justn't get any cutter the nuts.
So this one's a pink flower cone and this one's
a yellow sunflower cone. Which one do we want to
try on her first? Oh my god, she's so cute. Yeah,
(26:31):
pink flower for the wind, Yeah, the motor going most likely. Yeah,
this will be my whole life. Maybe when I'm old,
I'll be doing I don't know, something different. My passion
is just like see a cat and help a cat.
(26:53):
I don't plan on ever stopping rescuing cats.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
It is currently eleven thirty pm, just about and I
have just finished scooping all the litter boxes and feeding
all the cats, and now it's finally time for me
to get myself ready for bed.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Now I am very very ready to crash.
Good morning, though it is actually one two pm. I
am just currently sitting down with my first cup of
coffee for the day, though so feels like the start
of my day. So far today I have fed all
the kittens and cats, scooped everyone's litter box.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
And gave everyone their meds.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I need to before we go trap prep all of
the crates for the new kittens we're going to be
bringing in today. Yeah, I'm excited for this trapping today.
It's a location where we've already been trapping on the sidewalk,
but then recently got connected with a feeder next door
and discovered that he's feeding actually a lot more cats
in his backyard. So far, we've trapped six adults and
(00:47):
two kittens from this location.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
This is finally a show about a cat wrangler in Brooklyn.
Heidi Sisto documents her work with a tea that catches
stray cats and kittens on her Instagram Heidi Wrangles Cats.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Hello, So what we're listening to currently is some kittens
that just got brought to me that are confused and
crying when.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
They're little crates. Heidi Wrangles Cats is you can call
it an organization, but it's really just me that focuses
on TNR trap new to return fostering adoptions, all with
the big picture goal of reducing the overpopulation crisis that
we currently have in Brooklyn, New York. The overpopulation crisis
(01:43):
is a man made problem. Cats are not native to
the streets of New York. It all started with people
living in a city having pet cats, not having those
cats fixed, and then having those cats then subsequently live outdoors.
From there, those cats bread and then bread with their offspring,
(02:03):
and their offspring breeding with their offspring, and all of
a sudden you have an explosion in the population. The
average female cat can have up to four litters per year,
with litter sizes ranging between three to seven kittens on average.
So if you do the math, that can become hundreds
(02:23):
of cats very quickly. But also built into that there
is a very high mortality rate. Up to seventy five
percent of kittens born outdoors will die before six months
of age, so it's so much suffering, and even with
that high mortality rate, the population is still exploding. But yeah,
I mean most rescuers, though, we're just individual people and
(02:45):
we work together. We share resources, like on this recent
trapping project, the other rescuer I'm working with, Suza has
like a great basement for holding all of the feral
cats before and after their Spain eater surgery. I love
kittens and I have a huge, you know, soft spot
for kittens. If I do have any sort of like
(03:06):
quote unquote specialty, it is with kittens specifically. Even though
I do a little bit of everything, the kittens are
really like the thing that I go crazy for. Hid
how did you hear about this particular taste? It was me.
I am an a rescue group with Heidi. We're like
(03:29):
a collective of a bunch of independent rescuers. And someone
contacted me on Instagram. Wow, said, my friend loves on
the Street and they have a prod colony, are front
managed and there are a bunch of kittens and we've
been sitting outside out front for a couple of months
and we would not get to the rest of the kittens.
Wou and wait and they wouldn't show up. And so
we figured.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
And this presumably Australian thing, oh Stope was like, you
should talk to that guy, and so we just.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Knocked on this started talking to We literally just went
to this man's house at nine thirty at night, and
we're like, do you think cats? Ye? Hello, good Joanna you?
Speaker 5 (04:21):
Oh good God?
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Do you frequently do count rescue from your home?
Speaker 5 (04:27):
Oh? I love you?
Speaker 6 (04:29):
Police at the captains.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Colin, have you been speaking and helping strays from the neighborhood?
Speaker 6 (04:42):
I just started if I'm not a pet person before,
actually people, I do my best to help them them
then the best I can't.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
I can't do everything, but I just do the best
I can't. My life, I try, I do. Yes, my
pretty babies, oh my next picture, pretty babies the next
or a yeah, A lot of that.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, Gilbert has seen a lot of you have.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
Look at the window. They screaming it, but they can't.
They just stuck together. You know.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I had to come with my glove in the back.
That's really hard. Someone else told us about pats right
over there.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
Get this, like pl one that one thing.
Speaker 6 (05:28):
Just started with two cats five six between the all starts.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
But they were all going like two plus cats in
a trap. So we're gonna have to after we trap
everyone sort of redistribute and separate adults and kittens.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
So we'll put the food in the back of the
traps and then we'll have sardines for something a little
extra extra, we're gonna hold This is like the my
favorite way of traps called the bottle string technique.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Do you see that? Like bottle with the strings, use
of bottles to hold the doors open. We thread them
all to that window, we set them, we run inside.
We watched from the window, and then when as many
cats as possible are all in the traps at the
same time, we pull all the strings and all the
doors close at once. Probably will take more than one
(06:18):
pull obviously to get all the cats because there's a
few full five strings.
Speaker 6 (06:27):
Okay, asking me like, how are you going gag the
team effort as you can.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
With each other exactly. Yeah, this is my favorite of
trap is with trap training. Get the cats used to
the traps also because they know Gilbert. But they're already
pretty trusting, Like this is where they eat every single day,
so they're pretty good them. Do you want to When
(07:03):
I was in you know, high school, imagining my passions,
it was always in like fashion and photography. Never thought
that cat rescue would be my future or my profession
by any means. My parents have cats. My dad's a
cat guy. He's a cat dad. He's like done the
thing where he's like turn them into dogs and like
train them to walk on leashes and teaches them to
(07:25):
do tricks and they can like shake and stand for
treats because that's just like my dad's energy. So yeah,
so he's definitely like a cat man. But I was
never like, oh, this crazy cat person at all. So yeah,
so it's all started with me just seeing cats on
the street in my neighborhood and feeling bad about it
(07:47):
and scooping them and bringing them into my house and
then not really knowing what to do but figuring it out.
And then yeah, from there it's grown into what I
kind of jokingly refer to as a cat empire that
I run o y the traps right now, he's just
(08:14):
staring at us. Don't look at him. I got a bunch, Ok,
we got a few. So right now we're covering the
(08:37):
traps with sheets to keep everybody calm, chills them out,
less stressful for them. So basically, the adults go back
to Susas and we have more spain Ud appointments tomorrow
for them, and then the kittens come back to my place.
(08:58):
Can you grab the one that's nothing.
Speaker 5 (09:03):
At any right here, I'm right y, I'm right over
right best ya m I'm daddy, I'm right here, I'm
right here, I'm right here, I'm right here. Go ahead,
I'm right here. I just don't wanna be hurried down.
Say I don't want it. Gonna be safe and things
out the home they eating? Can they gonna eating good?
Speaker 1 (09:21):
You know, how do you feel watching them getting?
Speaker 5 (09:24):
I fell so bad? I wanna cry so bad, I say,
I w I really really, I really I feel a couple.
I really do. But I said, fist stop for him,
though you know I full stop from him. I mean no,
I really do. I'm really full side for Soody, full
sick for him. But long needs safe. I'm good, Yeah,
I can, I got the best good. I'm good. Oh,
I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm a best him
(09:45):
dog lo I ship every day I feel every day.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
You know.
Speaker 5 (09:51):
I'm good, I'm good.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (09:56):
I'll be okay. I go up here. You're doing a
past that you.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Have you thought about keeping one as a pet?
Speaker 5 (10:03):
I remember here, it's gonna be Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
You know.
Speaker 6 (10:08):
You don't like cats. He basically told me, like what,
we'll come here and take it. Friends, Oh that's a
fat wed Yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:24):
Exactly, Red yea.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
So do you think the same thing will happen again
next year?
Speaker 6 (10:28):
You'll take care of them call have them good, even
though it is a little heartbreaking.
Speaker 5 (10:35):
I will. They're just going to have such happy, love
filled lives and someone's home like that.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Like that good work. So okay, so put me in
the group chat.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
I would. I'm totally happy to not go to CAF tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
The people who feed cats usually get very emotionally attached
to them, for sure. There's It's interesting the people who
feed cats and the people who do have rescue are
usually not the same and are usually very different. You'd
think it'd be one and the same, right, Like the
people who feed the cats are the people who trap
the cats and the people who rescue cats. But actually
it's really not. But yeah, definitely, the feeders tend to
(11:15):
be a lot more emotionally invested. It does tend to
be that a lot of feeders are just like oftentimes
lower income people who have lived in the neighborhood for
a really long time, who just see the cats every
single day in their backyards. And then you know, trappers
are just like bored white ladies with a lot of
free time and a lot of you know, dispensable income.
(11:39):
That's like the stereotypes I would say, there's obviously rich
feeders and trappers. Who are you know? I mean, I
do think though, we kind of start from very similar
places of like just seeing a cat on the street
and feeling compassionate about it and you know, feeding it,
wanting to take care of it. So I think we
(12:00):
all start from the same place. And then I think
the people who end up doing cat rescue end up
just like branching out beyond that and you know, doing
tn R doing rescue. And then I just think as
time goes on, the more you do it, the more
you do get like a little bit more calloused, and
and so you kind of like you you veeer in
(12:22):
like different directions a little bit. The people right now,
I just need to be realistic about my strength. I
have a BFA and photography. That's why I moved to
New York to pursue and then after college I worked
(12:45):
for eight years for an independent women's ward designer. So
all of the photography for the website, you know, handling
all of the online sales, the marketing, the social media,
worked there for eight years and was doing that wall
rescuing cats the entire time, and it definitely got to
a point where having a full time day job and
(13:07):
rescuing cats was just way too much to do. Four
years ago I really started realizing, like, oh no, I
just want to be a cat rescuer. It's so it's
it's very fulfilling to rescue cats. Actually I went part
time for six months before actually quitting, just to see,
you know, to like slowly basically see if financially I
could do it, and I could. Some months obviously have
(13:31):
been leaner than others. But now it's been a little
over two years since I quit my day job. My
income comes from social media, so that's you know, that's photography,
that's videos, and you know, it's working. It's I'm here,
I'm doing it, I'm paying my bills, and I'm helping cats.
So it scratches the creative side of my brain as
(13:54):
well as like I have a very problem solving brain
as well. So I'm like very fulfilled and very satisfied.
A critical part of cat rescue is working with your community.
Especially as a white person working in neighborhoods of color,
I can't just go around trapping cats because you know
(14:15):
there are indoor outdoor pets, there are bodega cats, or
even just like people like Gilbert if one day all
of his cats went missing and he didn't know why,
like that would crush him. So doing cat rescue responsibly
means working with your community and talking to people, like
I'll knock on a door any day. I definitely get
butterflies right before knocking on a stranger's door, and it's
(14:37):
like that exact moment of like walking up the stairs
to someone's front door, I definitely get really nervous, but
then usually the second they open the door, I just like,
I'm like, hey, like I live in the neighborhood and
I rescue cats. And someone told me that, you know
there's cats on this block, and I was wondering if
you do anything about them, if you feed them, And
then I get pretty comfortable once I'm actually like doing
(14:58):
my spiel 's actually because ninety five percent of the
time people are so receptive and so happy for someone
to be interested in helping the cats. I've had a
small percentage of time where people have been really against
the cats being trapped, and that sucks. I have an
(15:20):
aries Moon so though, so I can actually be extremely
combative if I'm in that situation. I don't back down easily,
so for better or worse. So I've definitely had a
couple of times where I've like people have yelled at me,
and I can I hold my ground pretty easily. But
then other times, like you know, like one time, this
(15:42):
woman was feeding a lot of cats and she was
like a very sweet woman, but she was an Orthodox
Jew and she was extremely against taking away their reproductive rights.
And you know, there was no yelling, nothing like we were.
It was a very civilized conversation. She actually started like
(16:02):
like weeping at the thought of taking away their right
to have children. And she was like crying and very
upset at the idea. And you know, I tried to
explain and at that point, like you just have to
choose your battles. And there are so many cats in
Brooklyn that I can trap somewhere else where there's a
(16:26):
feeder who like is like Gilbert, who's super grateful for
the help. So when I do encounter those situations where
a feeder is really does not want their cats trapped,
you know, you can only do so much because the
people who feed the cats, see the suffering, they see
them dying, they want the cats to get help. They
(16:48):
care about the cats. Also, there is like the stereotype
that cats help the rats, and cats can help the
rat situation a little bit, but cats are not. That's
like another kind of like news thing where cats are
not decimating entire rat populations. So a lot of times
people will be like, don't we don't want the cats fix.
(17:08):
We want more cats because they control the rats and
you know, but and I say, like, okay, well, the
faral cats are coming back, but some of them take
it to the next level where they're like they don't
want them fixed because they just want more and more
cats for the rats. But rats that have ingested rat
poison kills cats.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
And it's really sad. Yeah, it's not, it's all bad news.
It's it's just sort of like a narrow mindset because
then what about the cat's quality of life? You know,
like that matters too, what about all the kittens that
die before adulthood, because it's just not a life. So
that's what I'm trying to do emotionally, one thing that
(17:53):
people don't prepare you for, and also that people don't
really talk about is actually compassion fatigue is a very
real thing with a lot of rescues, where because we
see so much suffering on a daily basis, we become
a little bit numb to it, and I would say
a little bit calloused. We see so many suffering sick
(18:16):
cats and kittens all the time, and it makes you, unfortunately,
you know, a lot less compassionate towards humans. I would say,
because you can only there's only so much that you
can care about. And also in cat rescue, we see
the way humans fail cats, both indirectly and also very directly.
(18:38):
We have a big problem in York with cats getting
dumped and abandoned, people just kicking them out, people moving
and leaving them behind. It's very very common. So seeing
that like direct neglect and cruelty on a daily basis
makes it hard to like people question. Most feral cats
(19:15):
will be like paper weights in the trap, will just
be these scared, little silent rocks. And if you ever
have a cat that's like yowing a bunch and like
thrashing around and being really vocal, that is almost a
guarantee it's a friendly cat, because friendly cats meow. Humans
(19:35):
and feral ones will just be a little paperweights. I
had a roommate for a while who I like asked.
I was like, there's a cat outside, Can I bring
him in? And she was like no. And then when
I moved into the apartment I'm in now because I've
been in my current place for like eleven years or so.
And then the next cat I saw outside, I just
(19:56):
picked it up and carried it home in my arms.
And that actually ended up being someone's lost and it
was Microchip and we well, we were able to reunite
it with its owner, so that was yeah, that was
like my gateway. It was like this long, beautiful, long
haired Calico cat and it was like in the pouring rain,
and it was like yeah, and then it like was
like following us, like up the block and then I
was like, okay, you come with me, and I just
like pitched up and carried it home. And that's how
(20:18):
I rescued my first few cats. Actually, when I would
be in the neighborhood like walking home from like a
party drunk, and I would just like chase cats around
and like grab them in my arms and carry them home.
And then I like reached out to her rescue group
and I was like, I got this cat, what do
I do? Like, can you guys help me get it adopted?
And so then they kind of like took me under
their wing and like taught me about n R. And
(20:40):
so then I just slowly overtimed just sort of like
grew and grew, and then I fostered for for that
rescue that I reached out to, like once the cats
that I had myself found God adopted. But then over
time I kind of grew to the point of now
people foster for me. I'm over the bad mentor though
(21:01):
don't tell anyone that. Like, everyone has their skill sets
in this life, and I'm so grateful to the people
the rescuers who you know, taught me everything that I
know and like mentored me. But when it comes to
like one on one, I'm not good at that. It's
not my skill set. Do you feel like maybe you're
like a cat and you like to operate alone a
little bit? Definitely? I would say it's that's actually a
(21:22):
really common personality trait of cat rescuers. None of us
have social skills, Like we're all definitely like a little
bit introverted. There's exceptions, of course, but a lot of us, yeah,
are like weird introverts who don't have social skills, and
I definitely fit that stereotype of like I, yeah, we
we like animals, and a lot of us don't, like
(21:45):
don't necessarily aren't good with people. That's ups you know,
I appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (21:59):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
This is this book is like eight hundred dollars worth
of can mets. What medicine is it. It's for FIP treatment.
It is the mutation of the feeling coronavirus and it
kills cats, and for a long time it was a
death sentence. But thanks to a new groundbreaking treatment is
(22:24):
eighty four days and it's really expensive. And I have
two cats currently getting FIP treatment, so it's like easily
probably like between the two of them, like five grand
or something. So yeah, so this box of meds alone
is eight hundred bucks and I've been waiting for I
need it, so I'm really glad I got it. But
the thing also about this med is that it's not
like legal in the United States. That's cannot prescribe it.
(22:48):
That's will recommend the treatment, but they cannot prescribe it,
so you have to get it from like the there's
like a Facebook group where you can get like these
black market FIP drugs that are really expensive. So we're like,
I got this box, I got to carry those six kids.
Oh my god, there's something.
Speaker 5 (23:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
My life definitely revolves around cats, and my schedule revolves
around cats. I don't have a nine to five by
any means. And I would say especially, I mean, I
would say my life mainly revolves around like vet appointments,
and I will say when it comes to vet appointments,
I am never late. I am always fifteen minutes early
(23:30):
because I care so much about that, But when it
comes to social things, I am always late. And really
it's to the cats. The cats always just come first,
So I can appairently. I can be on time for cats,
I just can't be on time for anything else. I
have more than usual because I just have taken on
ten kittens in a matter of like forty eight hours,
(23:53):
so we're a little bit more than normal. Hopefully soon
we'll get them ushered out into foster. So I have
a three bedroom apartment, but I only have one roommate,
so I have a cat room. So we're gonna set
everyone up in the cat room right now, which you
will see. I have a roommate for a really long time.
(24:15):
It's only been a cat room for like a year
and a half, and it's been like the best thing ever.
My apartment would be even here if I didn't have
the cats. I definitely have had to like cater my
life to the cats, obviously, but it's important to me
to be clean and be q and this is my home,
like I you know, I take pride in it. I
(24:36):
do still have a social life. I have friends that
are both cat rescuers and I have friends that don't
even particularly like cats. Dating wise, I mean, I am
a very I've been single for a very long time.
I've been single for like a decade. But it's not
really related to the cats. Actually, it's just my personality.
I'm an extremely independent person, so dating has always been
(25:02):
not a priority even before the cats, and definitely the
cats are an issue. One thing, like the line I
always I draw is that I don't like to have
a guy spend the night if I have a litter
box in my bedroom, because a lot of times I
have a cat that'll be isolated to my bedroom for
various reasons, which means there's a litter box in there,
and so that's the way I draw the line. I'll
(25:23):
have a guy over if I don't have a litter
box in my bedroom. But if I do have a
litter box in my bedroom, then no men may enter
my bedroom because I just you know, I just would
be too insecure about it. I know, Pixel or this
desk and all the kittens in the world, I'm not
used to seeing a baby kitten with a cone on
(25:44):
its head. She's the most pitiful kitten of all time.
So Pixel had an abscess on her arm and she
has to be in a cone for two weeks as
a result, and I.
Speaker 7 (25:58):
Can't have her in just a boling cone. We had
to get cute ones for just the cutest, tinyus little
baby cones.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
I mean, come on, it's justn't get any cutter the nuts.
So this one's a pink flower cone and this one's
a yellow sunflower cone. Which one do we want to
try on her first? Oh my god, she's so cute. Yeah,
(26:31):
pink flower for the wind, Yeah, the motor going most likely. Yeah,
this will be my whole life. Maybe when I'm old,
I'll be doing I don't know, something different. My passion
is just like see a cat and help a cat.
(26:53):
I don't plan on ever stopping rescuing cats.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
It is currently eleven thirty pm, just about and I
have just finished scooping all the litter boxes and feeding
all the cats, and now it's finally time for me
to get myself ready for bed.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Now I am very very ready to crash.
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