Alley Cat Allies’ Boardwalk Cats Project® volunteers to clean and beautify boardwalk area
For Immediate Release: April 21, 2014
Contact: JOHNNIE SIMPSON, [email protected] or (240) 482-3895
ATLANTIC CITY, NJEvery summer, and year round, Atlantic City’s visitors are charmed by the colony of feral cats who live around the city’s famed boardwalk. Volunteers from Alley Cat Alliesthe nation’s largest advocacy organization dedicated to catswill help the cats get ready for their summer visitors with two spring cleanup days.
The volunteers will fill the cats’ shelters with new straw, reposition shelters to protect them from wind and rain, pick up trash and debris, and repair any damaged structures.
“We want to help keep the boardwalk area in top shape,” said Becky Robinson, president and founder of Alley Cat Allies. “We’re not only doing this for the catswe’re doing it because we care about the entire community. Our volunteers will spruce up the cats’ shelters, but they’ll also pick up soda cans, chip bags and other trasheven though they obviously aren’t a product of the cats.”
Alley Cat Allies’ volunteers will be out in full force on two cleanup days:
WHEN: Saturday, April 26, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
WHERE: Starting at S. Sovereign Ave. and Boardwalk
WHEN: Saturday, May 3, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
WHERE: Starting at S. Vermont Ave. and Boardwalk
Volunteers will start at listed locations.
Since 2000, Alley Cat Allies has cared for the cats living at the boardwalk through Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR), a humane and lifesaving program in which the cats have been neutered and vaccinated at local clinics before being returned to their home on the boardwalk, where they receive regular food and care from Alley Cat Allies volunteers. The 14-year-old Boardwalk Cats Project is enormously successful, and has the support of city leaders as well as local businesses.
The cats are wary of people and can’t be adoptedbut they live healthy, natural lives in their outdoor home. Through the program, friendly cats and young kittens have been put up for adoption.
“This program has been so successful that in more than a decade, there hasn’t been a single new litter of kittens at the boardwalk,” said Robinson. “The only kind of litter there is trashand after our cleanup day, that will be gone too!”
TNR has stabilized the population of cats, and the colony is slowly decreasing in size through natural attrition. The cats who remain at the boardwalk can be recognized by their “eartips” a small portion of their left ear is removed by a veterinarian while they are still anesthetized after being spayed/neutered.
For more information, visit www.alleycat.org/AtlanticCity.
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About Alley Cat Allies
Alley Cat Allies is the only national advocacy organization dedicated to the protection and humane treatment of cats. Founded in 1990, today Alley Cat Allies has over half a million supporters and helps tens of thousands of individuals, communities, and organizations save and improve the lives of millions of cats and kittens nationwide. Its website is www.alleycat.org.