RAVENSWOOD CATS RESCUED BY SAVE KITTY

RAVENSWOOD UPDATES FROM SAVEKITTY
I rode over to Ravenswood yesterday to see if I could find Debi and Rosary of SaveKitty. I wanted to ask if there was anything I could do to help. (Can't you just see me diving right into one of those crawl spaces, camera mounted on forehead) I spoke with Rosary Immordino, she said they are really making progress thanks to Bloomberg clearing Debi to go into the crawl spaces and telling NYCHA to work with them. I offered to tweet any updates as they happen (@bigcitylilkitty, #ravecats) and Rosary said she would call me whenever they nabbed someone.

That was around 3 pm on Friday, at 10 pm she called me (which means they were still there...) to send out the alert! They got a gray cat out! Then, this morning at 9:45 am, my phone rang again! Another cat trapped and pulled out of the crawl space! AWESOME! There is food and water in the traps in the crawl spaces.

Here are some details if you are interested. I will also tweet and will keep tweeting whatever they give me. I am tweeting updates from @bigcitylilkitty and tagging all Ravenswood updates #ravecats. For those of you not familiar with hashtags in twitter (#), go to your search field and type in #ravecats and it will pull up anything tweeted with that tag in it. I think their dedication and compassion is inspiring and amazing. Thank you SaveKitty!

• SaveKitty Foundation website: www.savekitty.org You can sign up for their newsletter to receive updates. You can also click on the Ravenswood link to read the latest.
  
• HOW YOU CAN HELP: Donate, foster, adopt, relocate a feral, spread the word, blog the story, RT!
• The Ravenswood/SaveKitty story will be covered by Warren Eckstein, famous Pet Expert, today, Sat. 8/28, on WOR 710 radio 4-6PM EST
• Debi, with NYCHA workers, is sweeping the Ravenswood buildings checking all crawl spaces for cats caught inside. They swept the buildings yesterday and will sweep again Monday (they can only enter and fully check all the buildings M-F). However, they are monitoring crawl space areas where they have traps daily. They pulled one out last night, and another out this morning!
  
• They CLOSED OUT 2 BUILDINGS YESTERDAY! (meaning 2 more buildings are free of cats) CATS ARE NOW LEFT IN 3 OF THE BUILDINGS. THERE ARE NOW 3 TO 5 CATS LEFT IN TOTAL THAT NEED TO BE TRAPPED AND REMOVED.
  
• Rosary says NYCHA is now working with them and putting in a good effort to help. Note, it is Saturday, these workers work M-F, they are helping on their day off. Please note they are now working very well with SaveKitty. Thank you to Bloomberg for stepping in and stepping up!
  
• There was a rumor spreading that dead cats had been found in the crawl spaces. This is untrue. According to Rosary of SaveKitty, NO DEAD CATS WERE FOUND. If you hear anyone say dead cats were found in the crawl spaces, please correct them and squash this rumor. People were calling the mayors office complaining about the dead cats, but it was untrue, this can cause some upset, please correct any misinformation you hear.
  
• Many would like to see Debi named NY'er of the Week for saving the Ravenswood ferals. To nominate her go to http://bit.ly/cuVc8Y
• Special thanks to lisacatv for spreading the word for help.
  

I got some nice pics of cats around the Ravenswood complex yesterday. These are cats that were out in the open, not caught in the crawl spaces.
More at http://www.flickr.com/photos/30644300@N05/.

3 colonies in LIC

First stop, the Bakery.

Well look who it is, Mama.

Let's get a close up of that crabby face.

When I see her I can't help but hum this tune

"Bad, bad, Mama cat, baddest cat in the whole damn town".

And now that I think about it, I probably could have named this guy Leroy Brown because after trying to bust out of a trap with his face "this guy looked like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone..."

He is not the black and white I had seen a few weeks ago, but he was there and did not have an ear tip, so he got trapped! My neighbor took a look at him and said he has come to her porch to eat, this is a couple of blocks away so he is roaming the neighborhood.

Over to the Greasy Paws lot.

Hemi, King of the concrete jungle!

Peek-a-boo, I see Hitchy poo!

She sat under the car watching me dish out the food waiting for me to serve her.

One more stop.

Another colony in LIC.

A friend asked me to pop by and check in on these guys.

At the first feeding station, I saw that one kitten my friend needs to catch.

So I set up the trap and went over to feed at the main feeding station, when I returned this is what I saw! Wow, they came out of nowhere just for 1 can of Friskies!

Instead of catching the kitten, that fat ass tom you see making his way to the front of the trap got trapped. I had to let him go, I'll be back when I am not lugging a trap on my bike!

Meanwhile over at the main feeding station,

Where's Waldo?

Can you find the cat supervising me?

2 cats in this photo

Snow Day

I stopped by the lot this morning to see how it looked after the big snow.

I see they were out and about.
This is the lot with the shelters.
The snow plow did not do them any favors...
Plywood saves the day!
We used it to keep the entrances and the area between the two shelters clear.

It looked like they had a little space, so I cleared a little more out of the way.

No-one was there, but I think we can thank the plow for that.

This is the area between the 2 shelters, the doors face each other here and the plywood stretches across the tops to keep the area clear.

Nice and clear under here, pretty amazing.

Lisa stocked them up with food the night before!

FOLDING TRAP PT 2 - WE HAVE A WINNER!!!

This trap IS the greatest thing since cat nip!

Thank you Tru-Catch for sending these along, they are well made, sturdy and they work!

And in this corner...

2 posts ago I posted a video of a folding trap from Humane Way and found it to be poorly constructed, difficult to assemble and fold, and the trap door was catching and a couple of times it did not close properly.

Meet the Tru-Catch 30 ltf Trap!

It folds!

Tru-Catch saw the video of the other folding trap and contacted me to have me try out their traps! Nicely done Tru-Catch! They sent 2 traps and I LOVE them!

(I sent the post to Humane Way to let them know I was having trouble with their product and they have not contacted me at all.)

As you can see it folds up to the height of a sneaker.

Video of assembly.

TRUCATCH wins this one paws down!

In comparison:

Both traps fold down to a nice, compact size.

Tru-Catch: Handle for use when folded and set up, set up and fold down is easy, trap is well made and designed and is sturdy, trip plate takes less pressure/weight to trigger door, trap door is reliable, customer service I have experienced so far seems top notch.

Humane Way: Handle only available when set up, set up and fold down is difficult as the fit is too tight, trap seems poorly made and flimsy, trip plate takes more pressure/weight to trigger door, trap door is unreliable as a couple of times it did not lock when I was testing it, can't rate customer service as they have not responded to my email, however that tells me something about it now doesn't it.

THANK YOU AGAIN TO TRUCATCH!

http://www.trucatchtraps.com

They are also on facebook!

Checking in on the Greasy Paws

I was at the bakery setting up some traps, but the new guy was not around today, so I left food in the traps and secured the doors (with zip ties AND padlocks) so they remain open and the cats can go in and out to eat. Plan is that when I go back I can set the traps and hopefully the new guy, thinking this is a nice, safe, new feeding area, will walk right in and I get him/her. Well, in theory it works, we will see. So I passed by the greasy paws lot while I had my handy zip car and a few extra minutes.

Love that M-F feeder!

They were all lined up for the grub and hanging out. Was nice to see them all out with plenty of food for everyone!

The cats I saw were Hood, Hitch, Muffler, Hemi, Hexbit, Winch, Torque, Beetle and Grommet.

Muffler and Hitch took a couple of breaks to play tag with the birds (no birds were hurt and kept coming back for more). But otherwise no-one even looked up!