Thanks to Imp for this story - this is a very unfortunate story.
It is however not an uncommon situation though the amount of money may differ. You can ask many caregivers for variations of this story - I have heard of several people who claim to have lost what savings they had and who are struggling to make ends meet. This particular case may have first resulted from SARS (as the time line seems to coincide), and as a knee jerk reaction to the killing many people reacted in a panic to try and save as many cats as they could. The problem is that the costs associated with this many cats (or indeed any large number of cats) keeps mounting. The cats grow older and inevitably grow sick and need medical care. They also constantly need food obviously - not to mention that it is almost impossible to really spend individual time with any large number of cats.
The bottom line is that while we don't know the exact circumstances of this case (and again, I can see that during SARS, situations were't exactly 'normal' for anyone - I should know because we ended up with some SARS cats too), taking in and caring for any large number of cats is a lose-lose situation. It is simply impossible to keep forking out so much money for one thing. For another, the money could have been better spent on TNRM. It would have benefited more cats in the long run. It is a shame because clearly all the caregivers who take cats in do it out of the kindness of their heart - and they often find that they end up broke and unable to care for the animals.
Another caregiver I know used to work with a mini 'shelter'. She was told that the shelter had to close because they had run out of money and all the animals would have to be killed. She took in a large proportion of those animals - but is strongly against shelters to this day, saying that they do not work. She continues working, though she probably could have retired earlier if she did not have the animals, just to keep paying the bills for the animals she took in.
4 comments:
I was thinking about this today. If the contributing factorsa re not dealt with:
1. breeders and animal trade/pet sellers are still in operation refusing to acknowledge the already thousands of animals out there in need to be adopted or cared for.
2. abandonment of pets still goes on. I still have not read any news of anyone getting the hand of the law for abandonment. I'm sure people are smart enough to do it without getting caught.
3. people who insists sterilization is a sin and that animals like humans have the right to reproduce (but when asked if they will take care of the offspring, they just take a simplistic answer that God will take care of them & when told that they might get culled if they are strays they just flatly say "then it's God's will") just gets me riled up just hearing their irresponsible answers >:{
So no amount of shelters will be able to rescue and take in these future animals by irresponsible actions stated above. Sterilization may reduce the number of strays but the problems won't get solved if the contributing factors still goes on and on... a never-ending cycle...
Yes eslina - that's true. It's really an economic problem - if there is a constant influx of animals onto the street then how will the issue be solved?
This is emotional blackmail and how can anyone seriously believe she spent millions!! The interest from her millions would have sustained the care of the animals! There are circulating rumours of this woman and the reliability of her sobbing story is in doubt!
Anonymous - that may well be, but I can see how she (or anyone) could spend a lot of money on the cats. I don't know the real story behind this but anyone CAN fall into this and end up spending a lot more money than they can afford on the cats. At the end of the day, no one can bail you (or the cats) out.
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