The clock is ticking down on the community of Little Bay Islands and the many feral cats that live there.
But one local man is vowing to try to rescue as many of the animals as possible before the the final ferry leaves on December 31.
William Weatherby is the manager of the Boyd’s Cove Trap-Neuter-Return Project, and has been helping rescue animals for close on three decades. On Christmas day he plans to travel to Little Bay Islands and spend three days finding as many of the felines as possible. He doesn’t want the animals to end up starving to death once the island is resettled.
Weatherby notes that cats are not found naturally in the wild here, and that these cats were once someone’s pets or the kittens of someone’s pet.
He says we owe it to them to try to help them.
Weatherby is concerned that any of the feral cats caught may be euthanized, but is working to make sure that doesn’t happen.
He says one of the rescues that may be taking the cats in Nova Scotia has assured him they will not be put to sleep. They will be assessed and either domesticated, or used as working cats where they’ll help kill mice and other rodents.