Sunday with the family - feral kittens at Overlook Construction site
Kittens play around their parents on Sunday April 19 at the construction site of the stalled 1 Bennett Park luxury apartment building. Calls to the ASPCA and Animal Care and Control revealed that neither of the agencies collects feral animals. Animal Care and Control only does so when it’s a danger to the community or someone has trapped the animals for them.
Valerie Wolinski, cat lover and owner of Critter Outfitter on Pinehurst Avenue and W. 187th Street said it’s largely up to private citizens or the landlord to trap the cats for the ASPCA or other pet adoption agency.
“It should be done because they’re kittens,” Wolinski said, adding that these particular cats might not be wild, because she knows people feed them. “I know people who have adopted kittens from that lot.”
“A lot of little not-for-profit groups like us pick up the slack,” said Trish Bogle, of WAHI Cats. Her group has trapped cats at the construction site before, but said this is a new family, and said she would start calling around to find foster homes and trappers for the litter. The group, which runs on as little as $2,000 a year, sometimes has trouble finding foster homes or people to trap the cats.
“Spring is rough time,” Bogle said.
The Manhattan Times is the bilingual newspaper of Washington Heights and Inwood.
