SASKATCHEWAN, CANADA – The landfill outside Hudson Bay, Sask., has become a dumping ground for unwanted cats over the years.
“This is common across Saskatchewan. A lot of dumps have cats who are dumped there like garbage,” said Dolores LaPlante, the founder of Sask Alley Cats Association.
“The one foreman was telling me about people would put a box of kittens outside the gate of the dump and leave food for them. And the next day, the food is there but the kittens are gone. Most likely predators got them and killed them.”
People from the small community have been feeding the felines and even created insulated shelters for them do sleep in during the cold winter months.
Last week, the shelters were destroyed in the semi-annual burn of the wood pile within the the landfill.
The Sask Alley Cat Association has been rescuing cats for almost 20 years. (Dolores LaPlante/GoFundMe)
The fire jumped from the wood and proceeded to spread to the cat dwellings. On the other side of the shelters, there were other hazardous materials.
“They had to stop the fire before it got to the oil. So they ended up getting a bobcat to pick up the flaming shelters and pushed them into the burning wood pile,” LaPlante said.
LaPlante estimates there are anywhere from 30 to 50 cats living in the dump near Hudson Bay.
“You don’t see a lot of people dumping cats that are spayed or neutered,” she said. “If we leave the dump as it is and out of those 30 cats, if 20 of those cats are girls and have babies, that’s 100 more kittens born this spring.”
After being contacted for help from a local resident, the Sask Alley Cat Association jumped into action.
They feared the cats could freeze to death as temperatures begin to get colder across the province.
“This is what we do,” LaPlante said.
The cats will be taken to Dr. Chapuis in Prince Albert to be neutered. As many as 22 surgeries are done per day for the Sask Alley Cats. (Submitted by Dolores LaPlante)
The province-wide no kill cat rescue plans on capturing these kitties and giving them the medical attention they do desperately need.
LaPlante now suspects many of the cats could have an illness or an injury caused by the fire in the dump.
The cats are already booked for surgery and will each be neutered or spayed by Wednesday morning.
“Most of them, I imagine, are feral [and] the odd cat who was somebody’s pet, who was domestic and left out there,” LaPlante, who is also a veterinarian technician, said.
“Not every vet is comfortable holding a wild cat. Nobody wants to hold that angry 15 pound tom cat. That’s my job.”
After their surgeries, some cats will go to the Smeaton Cat Rescue to recover from their surgeries.
LaPlante said they are still looking for farm owners who might be able to benefit from having a few cats in their barns after surgery, to serve as pest control.
“Being wild doesn’t mean you have to kill them,” LaPlante said.
This black cat was rescued by the Sask Alley Cats from a colony of 25 cats living in a garage in Eston. Herpes in cats is a common problem and can cause vision loss if not treated. (Submitted by Dolores LaPlante)
She also plans to meet with the Hudson Bay town council to come up with a new policy to prevent cats from populating the dump again.
“People are still going to be irresponsible and dump cats there. There could be one or two stragglers that we don’t manage to catch, so we need to come up with a long-term plan.”
