Nov 22 update
We don't seem to be able to report on this blogspot very often.  More information gets onto our facebook.com/stillwatercathaven more frequently!  But we do want to update this page at times like right now!

We have been very busy.  It seems this fall we have received  more phone calls regarding an over-abundance of community cats with people desiring to get these colonies under population control.  Most times the call to us is at a point where it would have been better to do something prior to this point in time.  Many of these situations are huge.

One part of the problem is the local Haven Humane Society contracted for Animal Control with the Cities of Anderson and Redding has an inertia to become involved with any assistance; their admonishment is if you feed these unowned cats they have become your responsibility(!), if you don't feed them they will go away(not likely!), and Haven is at capacity and without current ability to help but you may call tomorrow and see if they have room to help (tomorrow results in the same commentary)(!)

We have been so busy we have offered advice and provided traps and info about the TNR process without active trapping of our own.  We have regular traps, and box traps for the more reluctant cats.  There have been many successful efforts with these callers.

Right now Stillwater is primarily focused on two colonies, for trapping and removing them from their current site:

1. Mercury Drive, Reddiing.  A single woman was evicted from her home.  She had been supporting a cat/kittten colony and after the eviction she was returning to her former home in the middle of the night to feed her cats and was sleeping in her car there or at her storage rental.  She died on the floor of her storage unit after only several weeks since her eviction....So sad.

We have partnered together with two other rescuers to trap and remove 22 cats in this colony that no longer receives a caregiver's support in a neighborhood that has no interest in its existence.  One of our partners has a good space we can isolate this group, spay/neuter, vaccinate, and see if we can further tame some for adoption.  We need to find a new home for the others.  We have taken cats to Ferndale for use as Barn Cats and rodent control and we need to find an alternate site such as this.

2.  The Higgins Estate property, Churn Creek Rd. southeast of East Cypress, Redding.  This Colony was 150 plus cats in a program of spay/neuter and return (TNR) by another group.  The colony stabilization was completed in 2017 and was being monitored and maintained.

But there is now a new property owner intent on developing the property, destroying the marginal housing and utility buildings and deciding to ignore the cats.  He said he is assuming the cats will leave as his equipment clears the land and he removes much of the vegetation.  The new owner said we can trap and remove the cats if we can although he doesn't want to us to feed them and encourage them to remain during his efforts(!) He is not a friendly, compassionate individual.

It seems Haven Humane may become involved with trapping at this site and its large population and together we are hopeful we can improve a currently desperate situation.  This will be another large difficult project.  We will need to rehabilitate and discover an alternate location for this        colony also.  Fortunately the majority of these cats have been spayed/neutered.

At this time of year holiday relaxation and good cheer is most appropriate.  Our situation here will result with an ongoing frustration among any celebrations that uncontrolled community cat colonies continue to be discovered and could use our assistance.  Our capabilities are exceeded by the requests  that we are receiving daily.  We could use support, most immediately by giving an online donation on Giving Tuesday, December 3, 2019, northstategives.org, our profile will be listed in the Animals category.