THEY WERE SAFE AND WARM'
Authorities take away 90 cats from man in North Hills
Posted: 01/05/2011 08:41:09 PM PST
Updated: 01/05/2011 08:47:57 PM PST
James Howard holds his bunny "Alice" outside of this trailer in North Hills, where he housed more than 90 cats. (Photo by David Crane/L.A. Daily News)
This is the extended porch of James Howard's RV trailer in North Hills, where he had been sheltering 90 cats that were removed. (David Crane/L.A. Daily News)
But the city told him 90 meowing cats and their litterboxes confined to a single RV trailer was too many.
Howard, 57, watched on Wednesday as officers with the Los Angeles Police Department's Animal Cruelty Task Force carted off the cats, mostly strays, that he had sheltered in a retrofitted RV trailer with an extended porch.
They took them all, Howard said, standing in the middle of a hollow trailer lined with kitty litterboxes. Only a bunny rabbit named Alice, a small dog named Scruffy and his own broken heart was left, Howard said.
"I know what people say about hoarders, but this is the opposite," Howard said. "Ninety cats is a lot but they had plenty of room. They were safe and they were warm."
Officers with the task force and with Los Angeles Animal Services would not speak about the case, saying only that more information would be released today.
But Howard believes they were tipped off by a veterinarian "who may have gotten mad."
He said the worst condition any cat suffered was drippy eyes.
The city cited him with a $19,000 fine.
Howard said he's been saving cats for 14 years. He got into some trouble with it before and left Los Angeles County. But he returned recently to purchase a large swath of land in North Hills where he said he was working with the Rascal & Chloe Fund, Inc., a non-profit that helps find homes for stray animals,
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Imagine the despair this man is undergoing.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who has ONE cat in a one bedroom apartment and she can't keep the one and only litterbox anywhere near as clean as this man keeps six litterboxes and 90 cats.
It makes no difference whatsoever that the place is spotless and that the cats are healthy and fixed, does it?!
Surprising this man didn't end up in a hospital with a heart attack or dropped to the floor on the spot as he watched his cats get ripped away from him. This man was betrayed by someone who knew him well and knew how to hurt him the most. It could have been his vet who turned him in, but it also could have been a vet tech who didn't understand what he was doing with so many cats.
It could also have been someone who knows about his work with the cats such as a friend, a neighbor, a family member, a volunteer at the rescue he is affiliated with, a group who went in to help him fix all of his cats, or someone he has confided in. Could even be someone who is envious of his ability to care for so many cats and his selfless efforts to buy a plot of land in order to build a cat sanctuary for homeless rescues.
Could have been someone ( or several people) who were envious of this man's selflessness and ability to love, rescue, and care for so many so that even their their litterboxes didn't even have a single pee or poo ball inside of them when the cops came over to take pictures.
It could have been someone who felt this man was giving them competition; felt this man was showing them up. It could have been someone who knew him well enough to take advantage of his selfless nature-- Someone who didn't get out of him what they wanted so they set him up, then tried to break him down and crush his spirit by calling in the cops to take away his animals, knowing what would happen to the man and his animals.
It could have been someone who knew how much this person loved these cats so that by taking them away in the most traumatic way possible, this man would lose his desire to go through with his efforts at building a cat sanctuary.
ReplyDeleteSomeone wanted to see this man have a heart attack as a result of his heartbreaking-- as he watched all his beloved babies being ripped away from him; his heart breaking as he witnessed the fruits of a 14 year effort to keep these homeless creatures safe, warm, clean and dry, all collapsing before his very eyes. The terror.
Somebody's gloating and somebody's laughing. Somebody feels really good about themselves.
Whoever did this to this man and his cats wanted to do a lot of damage. My neighbor once told me that one of the cruellest things you can do to another human being is to break their ( selfless ) spirit.
Ninety cats is almost three-quarters as many cats as a single facility of Animal Control has at any one moment. This one man cared for them in contrast to the scores of employees required to feed the City's imprisoned cats, keep their cages clean, and then kill most of them and complete the required paperwork. This is a good contrast of the efficiency of Government vs. a motivated private individual. I would rather have seen the City give him a financial grant to help him out than destroy his loving mission. City Hall could have given him a commendation as an inspiration for others to join in and help homeless animals. I'm just dreaming.... but then so did that M. L. King dude back in the sixties. Perhaps a change in our public attitudes and policies is possible.
ReplyDeleteSeven dirty litterboxes for 90 cats? How many were spayed and neutered? Were there kittens and pregnant queens? How many had respiratory disease, leukemia and AIDS viruses, fleas and ear mites? I'm not going to show pity on this man without knowing all the facts. I can't help but think that a sane person would not cram 90 cats into an RV.
ReplyDeleteWhat seven dirty litterboxes? Last commenter did not bother to see how clean that trailer was and how clean those litterboxes are on a picture that was obviously taken by the officers who raided the RV. Where are all the cats? Pictures speak a thousand words. It doesn't look like there were 90 cats in that trailer. By the look of this picture, there is only one cat outside the trailer and no cats inside. Litterboxes are spanking clean by the look of this picture. Where's the feces in the boxes? Where's the feces in the yard? The yard looks clean and the one cat in the picture looks perfectly happy.
ReplyDeleteCat hater.
Dear WHAAA!!!,
ReplyDeleteYou either need glasses or your monitor is dirty. The reporter's photo captured the disgustingly dirty litterboxes as well as the DOG. And I would be careful who you call a "Cat Hater", bcause maybe the cat hater is the one who thinks it's OK to inhumanely hoard about a hundred cats into 2000 cubic feet. Who said the cats even were allowed outside the RV??
Dear Ms. Sensibility,
ReplyDeleteGet a life.
No feces on the floor or in the yard. No cats in the trailer. Officials lie about numbers. Or, Didn't-cha know?
They were safe and warm, now the city probably killed them. Bastards.
ReplyDeleteTrue, the cats have all been killed. That's what they mean when they say 'impounded and treated by a city technician'. Imprisoned, then killed...for what? They were safe and warm and now they're dead. Keep up the good work City of L.A., shame on you.
ReplyDelete