First anni-Purr-sary: One year spent saving 1,000 lives

For several years, any cat and kitten who entered East Baton Rouge Parish Animal Control (EBRACC) stood a 90% chance of being euthanized. However, in the past year alone, those odds changed for 1,000 of the city’s homeless felines. The difference is Project Purr BR.

While volunteering in the stray cat room at East Baton Rouge Parish Animal Control in Spring 2010, pathologist and longtime cat advocate Peggy Polk, M.D., became despondent over both the euthanasia rate and the persistent squalid, unsanitary conditions. After she became frustrated by shelter management’s inability to enforce infection control policies to prevent the spread of disease, she became determined to expedite the release of the cats—and especially young kittens—from facility and into foster homes, before they were exposed to the fatal outbreaks.

Polk immediately recruited neighbors and friends to begin fostering felines and holding adoptions at PetSmart and a suburban shopping center. Inspired by meetings of Baton Rouge Area Foundation’s No Kill BR committee and the case studies in the seminal book Redemption, she ambitiously pursued to a place to showcase rescued felines beyond the realm of traditional adoption venues. And, within a few months, Project Purr became the first and only rescue to receive a retail space donated by the Mall of Louisiana.

Now, Project Purr runs a minimum of 10 adoption events per week. Both the consistency of its locations and its high visibility has contributed to its placement approximately 750 cats and kittens in qualified permanent homes. (The remaining 250 felines rescued in the first year either died as a result of disease; proved too feral for placement as pets and were relocated to colonies; or remain in the foster homes awaiting adoption.)

As the group grew toward its current apex of 200 volunteers, a Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR) team was added to stem the population growth of the city’s estimated 60,000 feral cats. TNR supports Project Purr’s mission by providing humane alternatives to control the stray cat population. By offering free trapping and spay/neuter services, the team pro-actively prevents individuals and businesses exasperated by the exponential growth of cat colonies from killing the cats or demanding their removal and destruction as “nuisance animals.”

To date, TNR has spayed or neutered 1,500 cats and prevented the birth of an estimated 120,000 unwanted kittens over a seven-year period.

Still, despite the group’s successes, Polk remains focused on the urgency of rescuing every feline who enters Animal Control. “If [EBRACC] impounded 4,000 last year, and we were able to get 1,000 out of there, that’s only 25% [who were saved]. You can see what an overwhelming number that is. We’re still killing 75% of our cats and kittens that are coming in there.”

So, despite a barrage of requests from the public to take in felines found throughout the community, “Until every single cat and kitten that enters Animal Control is guaranteed a live outcome, we will continue to restrict our rescue to that facility,” Polk explains. “We’re rescuing the ones who have a 100% chance of dying without some human intervention.”

And, as the non-profit begins its second year, Polk aim is to decrease the city’s cat kill rate by at least 50%. After a year of exposure to Project Purr’s ever-changing kaleidoscope of adoptable, friendly felines from exotic Snowshoes, Bengals, Siamese and Himalayans to calicos and tabbies, Polk hopes Baton Rougeans are beginning re-evaluate preconceived notions regarding rescued animals. “The misperception about shelter cats is that they are undesirable, that they are [at the shelter] because they were bad pets. Our experience has taught us vastly different. These cats and kittens make are awesome pets. By just opening [their] homes to an animal—adopting or fostering—people can save a life and realize how little it truly takes to be a hero.”

Click here for Creature Feature, which includes some of Project Purr’s fabulous felines available for adoption.

Click here for this week’s City Lynx.