In the last two weeks:

• On 4/29 we sent 19 ferals to DCAS, 12 females and 7 males.
• On 4/30 we sent 5 ferals to ADOPT, all 5 were female.
• On 5/6 we sent 15 ferals to DCAS, 10 females and 6 males. We always wish a safe, happy home for the cats - one of the females of this trip was showing signs of being friendly and the caretaker had said that he would take her in if that was the case – Saturday, our volunteer brought a crate with when she returned Margie and set her up in a room. Five minutes away, she got a call from the caretaker, cat was out of crate (not our instructions 😊) and loving on him already, she has a permanent home now.
• On 5/7 we sent 3 friendlies, 1 feral to ADOPT, 2 females, 2 males. Unfortunately, the feral male had a severe head abscess and many other injuries while being hard FIV+ which would impact any hope of healing and he was euthanized. We relay this information so that it is clear that neutering saves lives – if this cat was neutered, he wouldn't have had the fighting behaviors that resulted in his injuries and FIV status.

Too often, there are kittens in a colony that we are unaware of prior to trapping. From late PM on 5/5 to late PM on 5/6 three kittens were discovered in and out of a completely crammed garage and shed. In the 5/6 trip there were 3 females from one location, they came back from surgery with notes that one was 6 years old, one was in heat and one was lactating. On 5/7 we tried putting the kittens with the lactating female – she was not thrilled but was letting them climb all over her. We decided to risk it, sent them off to a mom & babies foster and by early 5/8 heard the great news that all were nursing and the babies were tasting the canned food already!

You can see how hard we're working, this brings us to a total of 116 cats in April, 19 cats so far in May, 177 so far in 2021 and 12,626 since our start in 2007. Last year it was so hard to get surgery slots, by the end of May we had done only 95 cats in 2020. In 2019, by the end of May we had done 157 – so we're still ahead of when things were "normal"! Many thanks to Karen, April, Cheri, Laura, Edie, Mark, Diane, Kim for facilitating trapping, in addition to all the caretakers who are trapping! Thank you to our transporters – Debbie, Charli, Dedra, Karen, April! It takes a lot of people to accomplish this work!

19 cats already done!	The TNR room is so calm...

Bryan & Margie

Thank you for doing YOUR part!

Fund Our Ferals' Futures Fundraisers A Success!

Our fundraisers were successful! Our DuPage Giving Days raised a total of over $8,000 (final figures for an additional pool of funds not available yet) and our Giving Grid met the goal of $10,000 (with a matching of $10,000). This will help us continue to work on our building and definitely fund the purchase of our ISO cages (below). And, of course, keep the lights on, water flowing and the garbage collected – all those things associated with property upkeep!

Our ISO Room Has Cages!

(From Sue Lee)

We now have cages in our ISO room! The Shor-Line cages arrived on Thursday, 5/6. Debbie was there to receive them, and Larry and Karen promptly moved them into the building and got them unboxed.

Today, Saturday, 5/8, a team of folks including Larry, Laura and Vicki figured out all of the puzzle pieces and got them assembled. A special challenge was getting them properly aligned so the doors open and close smoothly. Thanks to Larry's, Vicki's and Laura's ingenuity and determination, the cages are looking and functioning nicely.

A few tasks remain - swapping the direction the door swings on 6 of the cages to accommodate the room configuration and installing the cat portals connecting two pairs of cages. Challenges for another day!

Many thanks to Larry, Laura, Vicki, Karen and Debbie for their help with this project!