Lisa
Lisa Lamberty - Gravesend, Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights, Crown Heights, Bed-Stuy Brooklyn
I’m originally from the south Bronx and moved to Brooklyn in the early 90’s, been living in Brooklyn since 1984. I’m on disability. Since 2015 I was certified with Neighborhood Cats and ever since then I’ve been trapping and rescuing cats. I’ve probably TNR’ed roughly 3,000 cats that include stray cats, kittens, abandoned cats and ferals. I’ve spent around $5,000 on cat rescue over the years.
I was walking down a block one day on a late night from work and I saw a lady feeding cats and it was very cold. I asked her if she needed help taking care of the cats. That was in 2015. I took over fixing the cats, feeding them, providing shelters because the lady’s family was angry that she was taking care of the cats. There were 9 cats and after TNR for all of them, in a few years there were just 3 left and those 3 were relocated to a barn in Connecticut with help from the Mayor’s Alliance. The cats all had to be removed because the property was sold.
It grew from there. I started TNR work at the Marlborough Houses which included 28 buildings of public housing. The cat problem there was extremely bad. It was a 20 on a scale of 1 to 10. People were taking in kittens but when they hit puberty and starting spraying or going into heat, the cats were abandoned. The cat population was getting out of control. All the cats are spayed and neutered, but I continue to monitor along with cooperation from a local resident who keeps me informed. New cats come along and I try to stay on top of it. There are hoarding situations and different problems that make TNR work challenging.
Ever since the ASPCA shut down for 6 months during Covid, the feral cat problem became a huge burden for rescuers. Services became shaved down. I’ve been in Florida for a few months and they have something called Operation Catnip. It’s a feral cat non-profit in Gainesville that services all the surrounding counties. They offer spay-neuter, vaccines, deworming. They charge $60 a cat, but they waive their fees for anyone who can’t afford it and ask for a donation of any amount instead. They loan traps with no deposit. Rescuers down here don’t have the same challenges of holding and recovery space because most people have homes with space to spare.
They also have Alachua County service for tame abandoned cats and they also offer adoption services. I’ve also gotten help from Gainesville Community Cats while I’ve been down here.
I think in NYC, we really need resources, so that we can be paid a stipend. If we had money for independent trappers and rescuers, it would be a tremendous help. Vet bills have skyrocketed. In the past, I could cremate a cat for $25 and now it’s $35. Everything has gone up. Florida has food pantries for cats. I was able to get 14 bags of food! That’s very hard to find in New York and for colony caretakers, the food adds up. I take care of 4 colonies of 23 cats, and I provide food for the caretaker at Marlborough Houses.
We need New York to step up and help with the cat situation. We just trapped seven cats at Gravesend and we had just released seven TNR’ed cats in that same location. Other rescuers offer limited support because they’re stretched thin too. We have animal cruelty laws that are not being enforced, the repercussions should be harsher. People are poisoning cats. We need a better support system. ASPCA will send an email saying they have 1700 appointments for the month and we have 1500 approved rescuers in the system. So that means 1500 people are competing for 1700 appointments. They release the spots at 6am and they are all reserved at exactly 6am. They are taken within 5 seconds because rescuers are all getting up and refreshing their screens to grab as many spots as they can.