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Lane County Homestead Overrun With At Least 400 Cats, Prompting Calls For Help

Brian Bull
/
KLCC

Animal welfare advocates are trying to save hundreds of cats on a rural homestead in Lane County. 

The group, Cat Rescue and Adoption Network, says there are more than 400 felines at the home outside Veneta.  The property owner is reportedly an elderly woman who’s been at the hospital, leaving her stepdaughter to casre for the animals.

Tamara Barnes, with the Eugene non-profit, Save the Pets,cautions that the site is essentially a haz-mat area, given the waste and diseases concentrated on it. She hopes many cats can be medically treated and adopted, but fears some may need to be put down.

“Pregnant mothers, kittens, you name it. And of course, animals have passed away out there as well," Barnes tells KLCC. 

"We’re working just on meeting basic needs right now, food, water.  And we have a veterinarian’s plan to sprinkle antibiotic in their food. Because that’s how you treat a herd of cats.”

Barnes says they’re trying to get the Humane Society and ASPCA involved.  Save the Pets is raising money to help care for the cats.

Copyright 2019, KLCC.

Brian Bull is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Oregon, and remains a contributor to the KLCC news department. He began working with KLCC in June 2016.   In his 27+ years as a public media journalist, he's worked at NPR, Twin Cities Public Television, South Dakota Public Broadcasting, Wisconsin Public Radio, and ideastream in Cleveland. His reporting has netted dozens of accolades, including four national Edward R. Murrow Awards (22 regional),  the Ohio Associated Press' Best Reporter Award, Best Radio Reporter from  the Native American Journalists Association, and the PRNDI/NEFE Award for Excellence in Consumer Finance Reporting.