Categories: Advocacy | Adoptables | Empty Cages

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There's so much going on at Empty Cages this month, we could barely fit it all in one newsletter.  But we tried, and you can read all about it here.

Categories: Empty Cages

Kiki was one of three tiny kittens rescued from a feral cat colony in Fort Greene. One of our dedicated volunteers feeds the feral and abandoned strays on this block and found the litter by surprise when she was doing her daily feeding and watering of her colonies. 

Categories: Rescue

Bubba the little baby pigeon was brought to Manhattan Animal Care & Control by a member of the public. He was scheduled to be killed since none of the other pigeon rehabilitators was calling ACC back--and ACC wanted him out by the end of the day. Luckily for him, ECC rescued him from ACC and is currently caring for him! He will be released back into the "wilds" of Williamsburg, Brooklyn very soon! Please contact ECC if you are willing to be an emergency contact transporter to help with picking up animals from places where they are in trouble or to help with transport to and from our veterinarians. This is an important job that we always need help with! (Photo by Jessica Bruah).

Categories: Adoptables

Acorn is a nine-month old cutie who was rescued as a sick stray from the streets of Crown Heights. He's feisty and funny, he loves the culinary arts, and he's as healthy as can be... but he's still a little shy around strangers. Acorn needs a patient guardian and a quiet home to warm up to the good things life has to offer. Can you bring Acorn out of his shell?

Categories: Empty Cages

Carrol, aka Miel, was rescued from the mean streets of Greenpoint. She was found under a log sick and terrified, but not wanting to leave her perceived safe space. Carrol was the most recent target of a nearby neighbor who has made it her personal mission to kill the neighborhood's cats by capturing them and sending them to NYC Animal Care & Control to be killed. The odds were against Carrol making it to her next birthday, so Empty Cages Collective (ECC) quickly intervened.

Within a few days with ECC (with love, food and medication) her fear evaporated and she became a loving cat ready to find a home to share with a loving human roommate or two.

Carrol quickly became a favorite at the ECC shelter space, as volunteers loved to pet such a fluffy, adorable kitty. And Carrol enjoyed the space far more than when she was hungry and scared out in Greenpoint, fighting for survival and avoiding run-ins with people that think strays and abandoned kitties should be at Animal Care & Control rather than on the streets. And while ACC might keep cats sheltered from the elements, they are far more at risk of death there, in a kill shelter space. But thankfully Carrol was found and rescued before she would have to suffer that fate.

After a longer than expected stay at the ECC shelter space, Carrol was finally adopted at the end of February. Isis and Jim came to see her and fell in love with her. Her transition to her new home began a bit rough as she spent a bit of time hiding under the bed, overwhelmed by her new quarters. But she adjusted quickly and now follows her human living companions all over the house and talks to them often. In fact, on a recent long trip to the vet Carrol was calm and collected; though, understandably, she was very happy to be home when it was all over.

Isis said that it took about a full month for Carrol to be fully comfortable with her new home, but they can tell she now knows she scored well to have have such a loving home. She enjoys when friends come to visit as she gets to showcase her very sweet curious nature. And when she is not making new fans she has taken to claiming her favorite spot on the couch and in her favorite chair.

Carrol is now in the arms of a stable and loving home. What better place could there be for such a wonderful and loving cat?

Help make it possible for other cats to transition to permanent homes by DONATING to Empty Cages Collective so we can work to assist other cats to find as loving a home as Isis and Jim have given to Carrol.

Categories: Adoptables

Her name is Basketball, and she's ready to play... and win your heart. Basketball is a beautiful orange tabby - a healthy, voluptuous young lady who was pulled from NYC Animal Care & Control's kill list. She's energetic yet laid-back, she's a slam-dunk mouser, and she loves to cuddle. In short, Basketball is the perfect house cat - she just doesn't have a house to call her own. Can you adopt Basketball?

Categories: Empty Cages

Mercury (right) with her good friend Doodle at Chocowinity Chicken Sanctuary in North Carolina

ECC Volunteer Staff Member Kelly with Mercury During a Dust-bathing Session

Some people don't look at chickens as a high priority for rescuing or deserving of compassion and care, with billions being killed each year for "food" and millions suffering to produce eggs in the US alone. Others are exploited, tormented, and killed in cock fighting and humiliating rituals like kaporos.

At Empty Cage Collective (ECC), we recognize chickens as the smart, funny, sentient beings they are, and if we can give them a helping hand or a better life, we will certainly try. The fact is, chickens are just as worthy of ethical and just treatment as any cat or dog. For one especially sweet and lucky hen named Mercury, life is now what it is supposed to be. Dusting, foraging, and living with her rooster friend Doodle at Chocowinity Chicken Sanctuary in North Carolina.

Mercury was found abandoned in a cemetery in Queens. She may have escaped a local live market where birds languish until being slaughtered for human consumption or was abandoned by someone who was "using" her for eggs and no longer had any use for her. Regardless, when ECC found out about Mercury's plight we agreed to take her into protective custody in order to provide temporary care and housing until a long-term home or sanctuary was found for her.

A volunteer staff member with Empty Cages Collective, plus 4 other native North Carolinans, happened to be taking a van down for the holidays and couldn't think of a better traveling companion than Mercury. After the 9-hour drive, Mercury and the humans couldn't be happier to reach their home. Once she arrived, it was like Mercury had always been there. She immediately covered her shiny black feathers with fresh dirt (dust bathed), started pecking for worms, and got to work removing debris from her new house. Seeing this picture, you would not believe she had ever come so close to something horrific happening to her. Her new roommate, Doodle, who was rescued after falling off a slaughterhouse-bound truck, fell in love at first sight and followed her everywhere. His natural chicken instincts were not as strong as Mercury's (he seemed a little lost until her arrival), but now he has grown into a strong protector, making sure nothing harms his beautiful hen.

We only wish all animals traditionally thought of as "food" were so lucky.

Categories: Advocacy

Thin Valentine is looking for a home. Her and her friends need you to support and promote Oreo's Law.

Julio after returning from his neuter surgery. He went from possible hypothermia victim to possible kill statistic to a great home in about a week. Julio and his feline fellows need you to contact your NYS Assembly member and State Senator to support Oreo's Law.

Willie, AKA Joshua, was pulled from NYC Animal Care & Control\'s Kill List by Empty Cages Collective. At the time, he had a bad cold and needed surgery on his injured eye. He is now in a wonderful home. Many cats and kittens like Willie will have a chance at a life if Oreo's Law passes.

Oreo before being killed. Labor Organizer Mother Jones said it best: Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.

It was only a month ago: February 2010. Bed Stuy, Brooklyn. The dog--a white pit bull with a black patch around her left eye--had been whining and barking and crying for days. Hungry, confused, hungry, tired, hungry. She would sit on the third-floor fire escape whining and then jump back into the open window of the abandoned house. She repeated this routine for hours, day after day, for at least a week.

A single question resonated repeatedly from the inside of her being: Why? Why was she left here? Why was there no food? Why was everything so scary? Why wouldn't anyone come to help her? WHY?

No one seemed to hear her cries. Finally, the continuous distressed barking and whining found the compassionate ear of a woman who lived in the building next door. The woman, Sam, started making phone calls searching for help for the dog, climbed down her own fire escape to throw food to the starving prisoner of the abandoned house, and worried about the dog's future. Eventually she called Empty Cages Collective (ECC) and Brooklyn Animal Foster Network (BAFN), as well as other organizations. BAFN volunteers rushed into action to access the abandoned building, gaining entry to the vacant apartment via the fire escape. BAFN rescued the dog and ferried her to safety and care in the form of food, veterinary treatment and temporary boarding. Then the work to find the dog (now named Valentine) a good, loving, permanent home began.

When an animal rescuer asked Sam why she didn't call for help sooner, she said she had tried but kept coming up with dead ends. Sam had been truly struggling with what to do for the young dog before BAFN intervened. Her quandary is one shared by many people concerned with stray, abused and homeless animals throughout the state of New York (and in fact, the nation). Sam didn't want to see the starving, abandoned dog "rescued" only to end up killed in a shelter that adheres to antiquated and unethical policies or attitudes that dictate killing for space, (treatable) health conditions and "behavioral problems" determined through archaic temperament testing. Sam had heard that many pit and pit bull mixes end up being killed at NYC Animal Care & Control, which they do. Even the ASPCA--an organization that, in recent years, stopped killing most healthy and treatable animals in its shelter--was known to kill pits rescued from abusive situations (e.g., Max, Oreo). Sam didn't want to send Valentine--already a victim of human cruelty and callousness--to be further victimized by being unnecessarily killed. No thinking, compassionate person could blame her.

Early the next morning, an Empty Cages Collective volunteer was shaken awake by the vibrating ringing of his cell phone. Barbara, the caller, was someone whose feral cat colony in Canarsie, Brooklyn, ECC had helped trap, sterilize and return. She was calling because someone had abandoned a small brown tabby kitten on her porch the night before, leaving nothing more than a box of food. The kitten was confused, terrified, and freezing! There was already several inches of snow on the ground, and more snow was coming. When ECC realized that the kitten had been left outside overnight and was found shaking uncontrollably at daybreak, we knew we had to help. ECC immediately agreed to accept the kitten (now known as Julio) into our adoption program. When asked why she didn't rescue the cat sooner, Barbara's reply was similar to Sam's. Barbara didn't want to take Julio to Brooklyn's Animal Care & Control, where he could be unnecessarily killed instead of being merely frightened and cold. "What would be the point of rescuing him just to turn him over to a place that would kill him?" Barbara asked. (Luckily for Julio, it only took about a week post-rescue for ECC to find him a terrific home!)

Much like Valentine the dog, Julio the kitten awaited rescue, suffering simply because the institutions in place to care for companion animals in crisis utilize killing as a method of problem-solving--a method that many members of the general public will not accept. The point is simple and yet profound: the public leaves animals in egregiously cruel, neglectful or unacceptable situations rather than bring those animals to shelters who kill healthy or treatable animals and show no active intention to stop. Animals stay in abusive situations because the institutions that are designed to help and protect them kill them instead. This ethical inconsistency has forced the public to remain hands off, refraining from reporting cruelty and neglect situations lest they aid and abet the killing of adoptable animals.

Oreo's Law (A. 9449/S. 6412), is New York State legislation proposed by Assemblyman Micah Kellner and State Senator Thomas Duane that has the potential to save the lives of countless puppies and kittens, dogs and cats, rabbits, guinea pigs and other companion animals who find themselves in animal control facilities in NY State. Oreo's Law (A. 9449/S. 6412), if passed, will make it illegal for an animal shelter, animal control establishment or pound to kill a healthy or treatable animal if a 501(c)3 non-profit animal rescue and adoption organization in good standing is willing to accept that animal into their rescue and adoption program. By legislating that no-kill shelters and rescue organizations have access to adoptable and medically treatable animals who are to be killed in shelters, the state of New York will send a clear, necessary message that killing healthy and treatable shelter animals is inhumane and should be avoided whenever viable alternatives exist. But that's not the whole story. Oreo's Law will have wonderful, broad-reaching consequences. In passing Oreo's Law, the state of New York will take the first step towards creating an environment where animals are not left in abusive and neglectful situations simply because their would be rescuers live in fear of making bad situations worse. Oreo's Law will represent a milestone in protecting animals in shelters. Furthermore, Oreo's Law, if passed, will enable, inspire and strengthen partnerships in the name of saving the lives of companion animals.

Throughout the state of New York, animals remain in less than ideal situations--sometimes abusive, often neglectful--simply because the traditional animal control model has created a false dichotomy of defeat: death or abuse. The apologists for these traditional shelters and animal control establishments tell us they are doing the best they can, that killing is currently necessary, and that animals who are leading imperfect lives in imperfect homes are better off dead. Yet conscience, intelligence and compassion show us the truth: No healthy or adoptable animal is "protected" through killing.

By reinforcing a schizophrenic paradigm where killing poses as love, the animal control establishment force the public to compromise the welfare of animals by asking them to do something they won't do: participate in a system that pulls animals from abusers only to unjustly end their lives--lives these animals value and struggle to keep intact. When killing is no longer treated as the go-to move for the countless animals entering traditional shelter establishments, existing humane alternatives will be utilized, perfected and expanded, while others will be discovered or created.

While justifications for killing abound, the truth is that shelters all over New York State kill animals who reputable and responsible animal rescue organizations are or would be willing to take, rehabilitate and place in loving homes. Animals are being killed in New York City, Rochester, Buffalo and cities and towns throughout the state because animal control establishments are not working with rescuers at all or will not work with them to the extent they could. Even in New York City, where NYC shelters do a better job working with rescue organizations than almost anywhere else in the state, animals are still killed while hardworking and knowledgeable individuals who run 501(c)3 non-profit animal rescues are denied the ability to pull animals destined to die.

Without Oreo's Law, there is no recourse for the animals and their rescuers when a pound, shelter or animal control establishment is determined to kill an animal for reasons other then irreparable suffering. Without Oreo's Law, healthy and treatable companion animals have no hope to live and find a loving home if the shelter they find themselves in has policies or staff determined to kill first and ask questions later. Just some of the individual animals who fall victim to unnecessary shelter killing are cats too terrified to show their true friendly selves, orphaned kittens and puppies young enough to need round-the-clock bottle-feeding, pit bulls in communities whose shelters have antiquated must-kill mandates on bully breed dogs, cats with slight colds and dogs with nothing more than a runny nose.

Right now as you read this, dogs and cats and other animals are marked to be "PTS" ("put to sleep") tomorrow morning or "EHR"'d ("euthanasia for humane reasons") tomorrow night at animal control establishments throughout New York State. Right now as you read this, 501(c)3 non-profit animal rescue and adoption organizations are willing to save many of those animals, incur the costs to provide food and veterinary care, and work hard to find those animals wonderful, loving homes--but will not be permitted to "pull" the animals from the establishments that will kill them. Those animals will be killed, just as Oreo was unnecessarily killed. Oreo's Law will save many of these lives and help to ensure that dogs like Valentine and kittens like Julio don't wait longer than absolutely necessary for help to arrive.

Oreo's Law will not bring back Oreo--the abused, but resilient dog who was killed when viable alternatives existed--but it will ensure that future "Oreos" (including tiny kittens, friendly cats, scared and hungry dogs, and even rabbits and hamsters) are given a fair shot at a good life. Oreo's Law is commonsense legislation that people who care about animals should vocally support for the thousands of animals who pass through shelters and rescue organizations--animals like Oreo, Max, Valentine, and Julio.

Categories: Empty Cages

Biggles! at home

Biggles makes friends easily!

One evening, an employee of Foodswings, a local vegan restaurant, called an ECC volunteer she knew and asked him to come rescue a stray mother cat and her two kittens. The feline family was about a block away from the restaurant and seemed very hungry. ECC flew into action to retrieve the starved, shy mother cat and her young.

Biggles and her two kittens, Basil and Dakota, were quickly brought to our shelter space. Biggles was a good mother and both kittens were healthy but shy. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find an adopter willing to take on three cats at once, so we set out to find them all good homes, whether together or separate. The kittens found homes fairly quickly, but Biggles remained with us for a little longer. She became very friendly with the ECC volunteers, and we knew her outgoing personality and funny face would help her find a home.

Kate wanted a cat who was social. She lives with two roommates and often has guests over. Once Kate met Biggles, she knew that Biggles had the personality she was looking for. As for being shy in her new home, that didn't happen with Biggles! Biggles settled into her new home immediately. As Kate tells us, "As soon as you left, she started hanging out with us all the time . . . She is always laying around on the couch or running back and forth around the apartment. She's a very happy, well-adjusted cat who is friendly with everyone who comes by!"

Biggles and her kittens are now all in wonderful, loving, permanent homes. That's the best outcome we could have wished for!