-The kittens are in here
in their little special place.
-This is a story about cats.
But before we tell you about these kittens purring
and pampered, you need to see where they came from.
[cats yowl]
Claws that scratch,
teeth that bite, [cats scream]
paws that run and run
and run when humans are around.
If we spoke cat, we would hear them
[cat hisses] curse.
Such nasty creatures.
Who would care about them?
Welcome to the wild
world of Alley Cat Project.
In a South Seattle neighborhood of boundaries,
highways and homeless encampments,
a young woman walks with a cage.
She places the cage on the ground.
One end is open.
On the other end, she puts the bait.
And then the alley Cat project Volunteer waits
and waits.
There's a lot of waiting before this. [cage rattles]
Deb Sorensen
founded Alley Cat Project in 2010.
-I never intended to do this. [laughs]
It was, it was never my plan.
I just started out volunteering at the shelter.
And I found out at that time that 80% of all the cats
that they euthanized were feral cats.
-Hey guys! Ready for some food?
-Feral cats are tough to find homes for.
They don't trust humans
as opposed to strays which have lived with people
at some point.
There are more free range cats than you realize.
Approximately 40 million in the United States,
according to the Humane Society.
Wild cats often live a short, hard life.
-They are very much in danger.
They fight to survive and they fight to mate.
-The big idea with Alley Cat project
is to help cats living outside live a better life.
If they can get them adopted,
that's the cat's meow.
For hardcore feral felines, there's something called
TNR: trap, neuter, return.
Capture wild cats, step two, get them spayed or neutered,
finally return them to where they were captured
with clipped ears to show they've been fixed.
Then wild cat colonies are happy places
where cats can live years and years.
No more macho male fights for mates.
No more litters and litters of kittens.
-They can have two or three litters a year
if, if they don't get caught in time.
-Let's do the math.
A female cat
will give birth to an average 12 kittens a year.
In seven years, a single pair of unaltered cats
and their offspring could produce 370,000 kittens.
Alley Cat Project has made great strides
creating contented colonies
of fixed and vaccinated wild cats in Seattle.
Volunteers feed them in raccoon proof stations.
-We spend over $50,000 a year on food alone.
-But there was a hotbed of feral litters
where Alley Cat Project could only scratch the surface.
Homeless encampments,
which attract rats that bring in cats. And then-
-One of the cats up here had a litter of kittens
and I've had ever since they were born.
-When we met Leah Shipley, she was living in a tent
in Sodo with her cats, Master Mittens and Mr.
Stench.
-They keep me happy and I do everything that I can for them.
Alley Cat Project had a tough time
convincing encampment residents ♪♪
to get their animals spayed and neutered.
That changed when volunteer Morgan Sandys showed up.
-Homeless people are just
normal people
going through
a really rough time and the connection
they have with their pets is-is often lifesaving,
and that should not be undermined for any reason.
-Sandys’ day job is in homeless outreach.
That's one reason Shipley and the other campers allowed
Sandys to take their cats away to be fixed.
The other reason? Sandys used to live here.
-I myself was homeless for about half a decade,
not too long ago.
-Sandys understands
what it means to have this when you have so little.
I love them to death.
And if I didn't have them, I don't know what
I would do.
-That's the power of the kitten.
Okay.
Here are those baby kitties we promised.
-I got them when they were two or three days old.
Now they're six weeks old.
-And foster parent Catherine Schatzel is in love
with six kittens born under a rhubarb bush.
She's especially smitten
with the kitten that almost didn't make it.
I called her.
We Won.
She was only three ounces when I first got her
and I syringe fed her and bottle fed her,
and now she's a whopping pound and eight ounces.
Hold on. [plastic rattles]
Yeah.
Look, the runts are always the feisty ones,
and all the others
follow her and learn and learn by her antics.
-For Alley Cat project’s 130 volunteers,
it's all hands on deck.
April through November.
Kitten season offers the best chance to change a life.
-Almost three quarters of all the cats we trap are kittens.
-Way to go, Morgan,
way to go.
The urgency for trappers.
There's a window of time
when kittens born in the wild can be tamed.
-So I think these kittens are spicy, by the way,
they're freaking out right now.
But I got all three in the morning a very
short amount of time.
-Experts say that
socializing window closes around sixteen weeks.
The younger the kittens are,
when they're put into foster care, the better the outcome.
Last year, Alley Cat Project placed a record 254
kittens born outside into loving homes.
Back at Schatzel’s house in West Seattle,
Deb Sorensen gives the kittens flea treatments.
Then it's time for fun.
-Oh, there you go.
There you go. my gosh.
You got it. Yes, you do.
There it is. Ah!
-Even the wild mama cat is getting more chill.
-I worked out that when I walked past her,
I shouldn't look at her,
and then she wouldn't run away.
-Very soon, the day will come when the puffins
will be ready for their forever homes.
It's a day Schatzel
looks toward with a mix of sadness and pride.
-For me, the hardest is when, the first day
or two or week after they've all been adopted
and it's too quiet.
And then I'll just check with
Deb and see what's next in the pipeline.
You never know.
Watch City Stream
Tuesday night at seven on the Seattle Channel
or find us any time online at Seattle Channel.
Dawg.