"Beauty," a cat rescued from Lawrence where it was trapped in a boarded up window.
The Cat’s Meow
When Barb Cusick went to tend to the feral cat colony by the public housing project on Hancock Street in Lawrence last Wednesday, one cat’s cries caught her attention. But she couldn’t quite tell where it was coming from.
The next day, the volunteer for the Animal Rescue of Merrimack Valley returned. The cat cries appeared to be coming form a garage at the project.
“I looked around and I still couldn’t find it,” said Cusick who visits the Hancock location regularly to feed and care for about 10 wild cats that live there.
She called Lawrence Animal Control along with Joyce Godsey at Animal Rescue. They searched and searched — nothing.
“I went back that night, set traps. It didn’t go in the trap so I figured it was trapped somewhere,” Cusick said. “I was losing sleep over this.”
By Friday, Cusick called Animal Control again asking for help. This time, the Fire Department came with thermal imaging equipment. A cat ran out of the garage. Figuring the cat had gotten out, the search ended. But Cusick was skeptical.
A friend of Cusick’s from New Hampshire’s Kitty Angels joined Cusick. They kept searching.
Then, success. Inside a small space in a boarded up window, they found the source of the cries. A near-frozen black cat — trapped. Pulling the board off, they at last managed to free the feline. Frozen and injured, it was near dead, Godsey said.
The space where Beauty was found.
Tending to Beauty
The cat, named Beauty by the staff at Animal Rescue, has a cracked rib and cut on its head. It’s going for X-rays Wednesday and the organization will have a better idea of the extent of the cat’s injuries.
Beauty isn’t new to the group. The clipped left ear is a sign the cat has been trapped, spayed and treated before by the organization. The problem right now, says Godsey, is finding funding to treat the animal, which is staying in a foster home.
Normally feral cats are released back into the wild, but in this particular case, Godsey says they’ll try to work with the cat to adapt it to domestic status.
“When they are ill it’s a little easier. They get used to being handled for medical care,” she said.
The Feral cats of Lawrence
If feeding feral cats sounds a bit counterproductive to decreasing the number of wild cats in Lawrence, Cusick says that couldn’t be further from the truth. The Animal Rescue of Merrimack Valley has been caring for several feral cat colonies in the city through a method of trapping, spaying and neutering them and then releasing them back into the wild. Cats who are not wild by nature, but have been abandoned are adopted out. Cusick says the end result is the organization has been able to decrease the number of cats living in the wild in Lawrence.
At the Sen. William X. Wall Experiment Station in Lawrence, Cusick says there were once about 60 cats living in the wild. Now it’s down to two. The ones born in the wild do not assimilate to homes very well and are much more content remaining in the wild, Cusick says. The key is getting them neutered or spayed and vaccinating them to control the populations and the spread of disease.
Cusick monitors three locations in the city — one, where Beauty was rescued on Hancock Street, has about 10 cats; another place further down the road has about eight and a garage on Melrose Terrace has another half dozen.
The Hancock location has posed a particular problem, though, Cusick says.
“It’s a very hard area to get a handle on,” she said. “People keep moving in and moving out and then they turn the cats out when they leave.”
In fact, while looking for the cat cries, volunteers stumbled across some new kittens. One of the kittens has been captured by the shelter and another they’re still trying to bring in.
Despite the spaying and neutering of the wild cats, with new cats being abandoned, it’s difficult to completely halt new litters.
Godsey says donations are drying up and the group is unsure what vet costs for Beauty will come to until after she’s been X-rayed. They are currently seeking help from the public.
TO HELP: Go to Animal Rescue of Merrimack Valley’s donation page.
A kitten rescued from Hancock Street.
Noah R. Bombard is the new media editor for The Eagle-Tribune in North Andover. He is a former award-winning newspaper and magazine editor who has been covering news in Massachusetts since 1997.