How Fostering is
Saving More Lives
In 2023, our doors opened to 950 cats and kittens in need; kittens born under porches, cats living in bushes, strays trying to adopt new humans. We see and hear it all. For our Director of Animal Welfare, Ashlee Yepez, she has been seeing it for 11 years at WHS. Ashlee’s love for animals started early in life, but as a child that lived in rural areas, her love for community cats really flourished.
“I was that kid that wanted to befriend every cat and kitten living outdoors, even going as far as capturing feral kittens with a butterfly net to socialize. My parents really had their hands full with my need to help them all.”
Over the years, Ashlee played a role in creating lifesaving pathways for cats and kittens at WHS. Starting with the development and implementation of WHS’s Community Cat Network, this program focused on trap, neuter, return (TNR) methods for healthy outdoor cats, and for the adoption of feral or semi-feral cats to untraditional homes such as barns, sheds, and workshops.
“As a fellow lover of outdoor cats, it was evident there were many others like me that wanted to care for and see them thrive. The creation of this program gave us the opportunity to build trust with those folks, thus allowing us to make a larger impact on population reduction versus dated ‘trap and kill’ methods. Trust gave us access to identify neighborhoods in need.”
A natural side effect of this program was the increased need to help remove young kittens from the community, with the hopes of socializing and adopting them out to traditional homes. Fast forward to today, over 58% of incoming cats are kittens under 6 months old.
“A large portion of the kittens are medically fragile whether they are sick, injured, riddled with parasites, or a combination of all the above. In 2023, our save rate for kittens specifically dropped to 89.6%.”
The national “No-Kill” standard for animal welfare organizations to meet is a save rate of 90% or higher. Though the average save rate for WHS has been 95%, the population of kittens specifically dropped. Ashlee and her team knew that changes needed to happen to better help kittens in need.
“I was honored to be nominated and selected to join the Best Friend’s Executive Leadership Certification for Cohort 9 last year. This program is the first of its kind, helping to educate animal welfare leaders and standardize better lifesaving practices. My time with Cohort 9 gave me the tools and resources to do better, and to pilot changes that would help save more lives.”
So, what changes has WHS made in 2024 to better meet the needs of kittens?
“We started getting the community more involved. Our facility is only equipped with 14 medical cat cages and 10 new-intake cat cages. Treatment times, dependent on illness, can range from 2-4 weeks or more, often leading us to pause intakes. So, when kind Samaritans or caregivers of community cats approached us, we instead turned them into fosters. We vaccinated and dewormed kittens as early as 4 weeks old, sent them back in a crate with blankets, food, and any other supplies needed. Sick kittens that could stay in foster were medicated, and healthy kittens were sent back to remain healthy until they were ready for adoption. We plea for fosters on a regular basis to bring awareness to the need giving new time fosters the opportunity to step up and help as needed.”
Ashlee and her team also worked with a local veterinarian to establish better vaccination and medical treatment protocols, developed communication strategies for the public, and even began carrying out a treatment program for kittens affected by Feline Panleukopenia Virus.
“Panleukopenia impacted the lives of 32 kittens in 2023. This year we have seen 17 kittens affected so far, but the difference is that they received treatment we weren’t able to provide to those in the past. Our team has been excited to see these little bundles of joy find adoptive homes.”
Kitten season is at its peak during the summer and fall months. It is the time fosters are most needed, along with the funding required to provide extensive medical care.
“Our team’s goal is to set a new lifesaving standard for our community. This pilot program is just the beginning.”