By Steve Pendleton
The Humane Society of Hardy County recently launched a campaign to deal with two colonies of cats in the Old Fields area. The goal of eventually placing the cats involves many things including spay and neuter surgery, testing for disease, a veterinarian giving each one a clean bill of health by signing a certificate, and locating a permanent home. There are approximately 50 cats all together. The cost comes to $285 per cat and $14,250 in total. So far, a little over $3,000 has been raised. Angel Bergdall and the Pilgrim’s Cook plant recently donated $2,000 toward this cause. In the past year Ms. Bergdall has authorized $7,300 in contributions to HSHC.
Once individual cats are sterilized and have negative test results for disease, they must be placed in a foster home or a place where they can safely live until being placed in a permanent home or a cat cafe. We cannot stress enough the importance of foster care and adoption in eliminating colonies of cats. The help of people in the community is a crucial part of this process. It also is important to know only one or two colonies can be dealt with at a time. We are aware of many colonies around Hardy and Grant Counties.
In the meantime, it is important that people take advantage of our spay and neuter program for feral cats to at least keep colonies from growing. Thanks to the generosity of Pilgrim’s, the town of Moorefield (a $10,000 contribution), and many individual donors, we have been able to pay for surgeries after the grant from the West Virginia Spay and Neuter program was depleted.
