You Can't Save Them All

I have lived with, cared for, loved and advocated for animals for as long as I can remember yet I'm no fan of no-kill shelters or the save-everything-just-because-we-can movement. I don't think it's responsible or humane to be building wheelchairs for every blind, obese, mange infested, heartworm positive, paralyzed old basset hound or keeping alive an insulin dependent, 24 year old , three quarters feral stray cat with leukemia and two broken legs and a shattered jaw. There comes a point when it's more important to alleviate pain and suffering than “rescue” and for every broken, emaciated, brutalized and abused animal in a shelter cage, that's one less cage for a young, healthy kitten or puppy. It's heartbreaking and gut wrenching and it'll give you nightmares, but not every animal ought to be saved just because the technology is available. Resources are precious and limited. We need to use them wisely, based on what's best for the animal, not the tender heartedness of our emotions. Lives are going to be lost and sometimes all we can offer is mercy and a peaceful exit. It's not something we must do out of just kindness or compassion or economic necessity or realistic rescue policies. It's something we must do because we are moral creatures with a moral obligation to those who have no voice. It's a truly hateful and poisonous, bitter fact but they can't all be saved.

These are the things going through my mind as I watch and photograph the 20 or 30 newest kittens (and these are only the ones who are out in the open) clustered on the porch of the wretched house on Elizabeth Street. Some are clearly injured, some are missing jagged patches of fur, some are emaciated and half feral. All are grievously ill, their eyes malformed and misshapen, some matted shut with the telltale greenish mucus of distemper, others blind with infection and deformities. Kitten season had just begun the last time I was here and tragically, it's now a thousand times worse.

It helps not at all to know that the man who lives here has no idea he's doing more harm than good. Even if I could put the suffering kittens aside for the moment, the health risk to the neighborhood is real and immediate. Without resources for this kind of situation, there isn't any option except parish animal control and I have no doubt that making that call will be signing the death warrant of every cat and kitten they can grab or trap. Knowing that it's the humane and merciful thing to do doesn't help. I don't want a mass euthanasia on my conscience. I'm not sure I'd ever get over it.

I reach out to anyone and everyone I can think of but in the end, I have to face a harsh reality.

No one except the parish has the resources or the authority to intervene. All these innocent animals will die. It's just a matter of how and how long it takes.

I make the call.