Of course, the article doesn’t
really describe the condition of the living cats except that they were in one
room. Certainly it is at the very least odd that someone would just dump
the carcasses but then how much would it have cost to have each cremated….
And if she couldn’t afford the cremation, I doubt she could afford the
vet bills. I’ve never understood why the vet schools don’t
set up free or low-cost clinics for their students to help with this
situation. It sounds like perhaps this is someone who got in way over
their head… As for mixing ‘sick’ & healthy cats,
does FELV diagnosis automatically constitute ‘sick’…
Believe me, I’m not trying to make
excuses for her but when as I look for a home for my Big Boy, I’ve talked
to any number of people who are clearly in over their head. One person,
highly recommended by several local rescue groups for taking their FELV cats,
refused to tell me where he lived & wanted to meet me in a parking lot to get
Big Boy. Rescue groups apparently meet him at Petco & give him their
FELV kittens. While he said the reason for not telling me where he was
was because people would dump animals made some sense, I was flabergasted that
no legitimate rescue group had ever seen his home. He might be
great but who would ever know!
-----Original Message-----
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Cherie A Gabbert
Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2005 11:06
AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Please read this
response!! URGENT:DO NOT USE-KittyKind -CATRESCUE-in Orange, NJ]
That is no excuse...I am appauld that anyone would
stand up for this individual, she deserves the same treatment she has giving
her supposed "furry friends", If she treats her friends this way I
would hate to be her enemy. I am utterly speechless that anyone would stand up
for her and her organization, I say the volunteers should open a shelter
themselves and Kess should go to jail. KittyKind Ha that is a laugh, like
the roach motel they check in and never check out...I am sick over this I would
like to meet her in a dark alley.
Sorry...usually I am more gentle that this...I am just
so shocked and disgusted.
Mia Nicer
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi
everyone!! My name is Mia and I am a fellow rescuer in the New York, New Jersey
and Conn. area. I am not making an
excuse for Marlene from Kitty Kind nor am I happy with the situation in which
she has put the Kitty Kind organization but, I do know about and I am very
familiar with this rescue group since it is in my area. I am not apart of this
organization but please listen to what I have to say about it:
This situation is extremely horrible and very unfortunate but in
the end it will be this rescue group and the kitties that suffer. Please do not
make it any harder for these cats to get adopted. This group has lots of
volunteers and fosters who put in all their free time to help some of
these and their own cats and have nothing to do with this situation nor did
they know anything about it. I believe that the overflow is what led Marlene to
this situation, again I am not making an excuse for anyone but please do not
punish the many volunteers, fosters and kitties for this. There are so many
kitties in need of a home and by making it harder for them to get their
cats adopted out doesn't help anyone.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
DNA - Marlene Kess & Kitty Kind
Rescue, East Orange, NJ.
Hundreds of dead cats found in yard.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: DO NOT USE-KittyKind -CAT RESCUE-in Orange, NJ
Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 12:19:35 -0400
Hundreds of dead cats found in woman's yard
E. Orange resident operates rescue agency
Friday, May 20, 2005
BY BRIAN T. MURRAY AND KASI ADDISON
Star-Ledger Staff
Over two decades, Marlene Kess built a reputation in Manhattan as a
caregiver of last resort for homeless and dying cats. If her rescue and
adoption agency, KittyKind, couldn't place a sick animal, she took it home
herself, overseeing its recuperation or caring for it until its death.
Yesterday, authorities discovered what Kess' philosophy looked like in
practice. Summoned to the woman's East Orange home by a neighbor complaining
about a stench, city health inspectors found 48 cats inside the house -- 38
of them in one room -- and more than 200 dead cats stuffed into garbage bags
in the back yard.
The sight of so many decomposing corpses -- and the fetid odor they
produced -- sickened animal-welfare officers and others who responded to the
two-story home on State Street.
"Oh my God, it was awful," said Michael Fowler of the Associated
Humane
Societies, the state's largest shelter group. "The smell was
horrible."
Kess -- the 56-year-old founder and executive director of KittyKind, which
operates one of New York City's few no-kill shelters -- moved to East Orange
from Manhattan in July. Dozens of cats, apparently, moved with her. More
arrived while she was there.
"She claims that she takes in sick cats -- cats with feline leukemia --
and
that she is a known rescuer who people will bring their cats to when they're
dying," said Sgt. Joseph Bierman of the New Jersey Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
When those cats did die, they went into large, heavy-duty garbage bags. Then
they went into the yard, which backs to a parking lot used by the East
Orange Board of Education and the East Orange Community Charter School.
Bierman said he counted 21 garbage bags, each containing 10 or more
vermin-infested carcasses. In some cases, he said, the cats had become so
decomposed a precise number of bodies could not be determined. Kess had been
placing dead cats in the yard since she moved in, Bierman said.
"I haven't seen anything quite like this," Bierman said.
"Certainly it's an
unusual incident."
Kess, seen arguing with animal-welfare officials outside the home, declined
to comment.
She was cited for several East Orange health code violations, among them
keeping an unlawful number of animals, harboring dead animals and creating a
potential environmental hazard by keeping the corpses on her property, city
sanitary inspector Frank Habegger said last night.
In addition, the SPCA charged her with 38 counts of failing to properly
shelter cats. The counts stem from the cats being locked together in a front
room. Some of the cats were healthy, while others were ill. Under state
regulations, anyone keeping large numbers of animals must separate the sick
from the healthy.
Ten other healthy cats were roaming free in the house.
Both investigations were continuing. This morning, public works crews were
expected to remove the carcasses from the back yard, and necropsies were to
be performed on some of the animals to determine a cause of death, said
Darryl Jeffries, a city spokesman.
Kess was allowed to keep the 48 living cats in her home because she said she
would separate the sick and healthy animals, Bierman said. SPCA officers
were planning to return to the home to ensure she does, he said.
She apparently planned to bury the corpse-laden garbage bags in a large hole
that had been recently dug in the back yard, Bierman said.
"It was almost like a grave," he said, describing it as about 5 feet
deep
and 7 feet wide. Kess told investigators she planned to plant a tree in the
spot but hadn't yet gotten around to buying one, Bierman said. A handyman
employed by Kess told investigators he dug the hole for a pool, the
investigator said.
Kess is well-known in cat rescue circles in Manhattan, where KittyKind
operates a shelter within a Petco at Union Square. A longtime resident of
Greenwich Village, she has been quoted frequently in small community
newspapers about her efforts -- and struggles -- to care for cats that
nobody else wants.
"Animal overpopulation is a big problem," she told one community
newspaper,
the New York Resident, in 2002. "People are very irresponsible."
Despite the difficulty placing cats, she has criticized New York City's high
euthanasia rate, and she has championed the idea of seeing cats through even
terminal illnesses.
Not all animal-welfare advocates agree with that philosophy.
"There are some things worse than death for animals, especially when they
are sick and people are trying to needlessly extend their lives because they
want to save every animal," said Roseanne Trezza, executive director of
the
Associated Humane Societies. "They refuse to recognize that we simply
can't
save them all, no matter how much we all care for these creatures, and no
matter how much it hurts to euthanize them."
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