In case anybody visits this site now that the last post is a year old: I finally got a nonprofit going to help with the cat work we do. Please head over to our other sites, I'll be posting there from now on. Who knows, maybe Jimmy Legs can go back to being a site about the bands I like in Brooklyn!
Bushwick Street Cats, Inc.
Moe, from the gene pool that brought you "Jake" and "Marbles"
Meet Moe. Because we're TNR-certified, we get email alerts when an eartipped cat comes into Animal Care & Control. Normally this happens when a person traps a feral cat and brings the cat to the pound. When they see the eartip, they know the cat is fixed and may belong to a managed colony. Shelter workers then send word to Neighborhood Cats (the main TNR resource in NYC and beyond) who tries to determine who the cat belongs to. If they can find the original TNR person, they can reunite them with the cat. If they can't find anyone willing to claim the cat, it will be put down almost immediately since it is feral. In these cases the cat's eartip is the only thing that gives it a stay of execution at all; the shelter can barely handle all the tame animals it houses, you can imagine its attitude towards unowned, unsocialized cats with zero adoptability. (more…)
We recently completed a new TNR project in Bushwick. This time around we went to the opposite end of the neighborhood, up where all the bars and restaurants are. (more…)
I am obsessed with shelter. Mine and the feral cats we watch over. Luckily, my house, however unkempt and run-down, is pretty sturdy. I get antsy when I worry that the skylight may not be watertight, or the cellar may be taking on water. But so far we've been lucky (well, we did have a bunch of plumbing work done to ensure the cellar won't flood).
So my attention ends up mostly being about the cats' shelter.We already have a number of shelters out back, but some are starting to fall apart and will need to be replaced. I built most of them, so I'm always trying to figure out how to build a shelter that will last forever and need zero maintenance. In the past couple of months, I built a few types of cat houses, as well as purchased a ready-made shelter.
