Animal Welfare Professionals

I'm planning a blog on the current situation with cat transports and I'd love to hear from anyone who does them on a regular basis -- or knows anyone who does. I'm particularly interested in the destination cities. NYC used to be the destination for most cat transports, and I'm wondering if that has changed.

Hi Susan!  Thanks for your question and for starting a blog.  As the Regional Specialist for the northeast, I'd be happy to share lots of information with you.  There are a number of groups currently transporting cats from overpopulated areas (south) to the northeast.  And I'm happy to let you know the transport protocols are getting better all the time which results in less stress and URI outbreaks on the receiving end.  One group in MA basically "wrote the book" on specific transport guidelines to follow (size of crate, number of cats, how to acclimate them etc...)  Second Chance Animal Shelter, http://www.secondchanceanimals.org/, has been doing a great job!  I know the Exec Dir, Sheryl Blancato, would be happy to share that information. Another group in NH, ARL of NH, has been working with Good Kharma in FL transporting cats/kittens and that's been going very well too.

Overall, most of the groups in the northeast work one on one with a group south of them.  Off the top of my head, I know places in VT (Burlington, Brattleboro, Stowe, Montpelier) all take in cat transports.  Several of the northeast states, ME/NH/RI/MA, have state regulations regarding transport so you should familiarize yourself with those as well.

I'm happy to share more information and/or answer questions - feel free to email at lindag@bestfriends.org.

Thanks Linda -- sent you an e-mail.

Hi Susan, I'm with Cat Adoption Team in Portland, Oregon. We take in over 2,500 cats per year from other shelters and rescues, and while those include local shelters, they also include shelters from as far away as Kansas and Louisiana. Just this week we had cats come in from our local partners, two regional shelters, a local vet office, and shelters/rescues in eastern Washington, southern Oregon, California (x 2), and Texas. We take cats from between 50 and 60 different shelter and rescue partners each year, by air and ground. We follow the Association of Shelter Veterinarians transport guidelines (pgs 39-41) (with the exception of not having transports over 12 hours--we have protocols with our further away partners to ensure safety and reduce stress for those transports) and are working toward meet most of the Society of Animal Welfare Administrators Best Practices in Animal Transport (we are not active in the communities of all of our source shelters and do not pay for all of the transports). Both of those documents would be helpful resources for you, if you haven't looked at them. We created our own more detailed guidelines for our own transports that spell out things very specifically like how short a transport can be for the cats to be without water or a litter box (remember, we have transports coming from across town so they don't all need a full set up) and how the vehicle should be secured when the driver takes a break. You can reach our Nine Lives Transfer Program coordinator, Sheena, to get details (like our transfer partner MOU and the guidelines we developed for our own transfers) at ninelives@catadoptionteam.org. We're happy to help with any questions you have!

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