75 Attend Feral Kitten Socialization Workshop

On July 26th, the ASPCA invited Urban Cat League President Mike Phillips to lead a workshop in Feral Kitten Socialization with ASPCA animal behaviorist Dr. Barbara Pezzanite. The workshop was enthusiastically attended by 75 individuals from the greater NYC area. Techniques were demonstrated to bring biting, scratching, feral kittens to the point where they enjoy human touch and can be safely adopted. We hope to do another very soon, but in the meantime........

Urban Cat League Vice President Cathe Neukum is preparing a full-length video showing Feral Kitten Socialization Techniques. An excerpt from this forthcoming video will be seen as streaming video on our website soon.

For a short list of helpful tips to socializing feral kittens, click here.

2004 Urban Cat League Community Outreach Project
– Marble Hill Housing Project in the Bronx

Every year, Urban Cat League endeavors to help cats outside our immediate area of Hell’s Kitchen by lending a hand to other NYC feral caretakers to undertake a project beyond their means alone. This year we responded to help coordinate the TNR/Rescue of a large colony of cats living on the grounds of the Marble Hill Housing Project in the Bronx. Mentoring the resident caretakers, 32 cats were trapped and neutered. Urban Cat League socialized all of the kittens from the colony for adoption and helped to find the best place for all of the adult cats of the colony after spay/neuter. The feral adult cats were returned to the grounds of Marble Hill where they continue to be provided for by local caretakers. Fortunately all of the domestic strays found adoptions. Three geriatric cats were fostered in our sanctuary until they were generously accepted to live out their lives at the Pets Alive Sanctuary. The project was very arduous but clearly a major population explosion was happily averted. Several housing projects around the city are the notorious dumping-ground for irresponsible people looking to abandon and animal.

This kind of large-scale project is immensely gratifying to undertake but Urban Cat League can't do it more than once per year in addition to our normal duties in Hell's Kitchen. We chose to help the struggling Bronx caretakers because of their courage against the odds in a part of NYC where there is so little organized care for street cats. We hope our contribution will encourage others in the Bronx to get involved helping the many street cats living there.

If you are reading this, you are probably already working generously on behalf of animals but .....

We always welcome donations to support our work to improve the lives of New York City street cats. You can make a secure credit card donation onliine at our website (Donations), by mail, or you may want to take advantage of the following offer to benefit Urban Cat League from the builder of our innovative website:

Right now, you can get a quality website for your business and help New York City’s street cats.

Our website has been described as “the most creative site of its kind.” People consistently praise it and it has been very successful for us. Paul Backalenick of Nexxite created the site as a volunteer and continues to serve as our Webmaster. Paul’s company has offered to build (or redesign) your site and donate 10% of the proceeds to the Urban Cat League.

It’s a great deal for us of course, but more importantly, you’ll get a great, professionally designed website at a good price.

If you need a website, why not get it and support the Urban Cat League at the same time! This offer is only good for 2004, so please act fast. Our cats will thank you!

Please contact Paul at Nexxite at pback@nexxite.com for more information. And mention this mailing.