This news article outlines a situation for a Presbyterian Church in New Jersey which is experiencing conflict about the proposed removal of a refuge for stray cats which been established on their land.
Local civic authorities, church leaders, cat lovers and lawyers are all involved.
Any attempts to satirise the situation are completely defeated by the simple reality of what’s actually happening.
Every day, one of the volunteers walks into a field behind the Middlesex Presbyterian Church and stops to feed Mama, Sonny and Jenny and seven other cats who call the place home.
But without a reprieve, that routine of charity may soon end. After eight years of putting out food and caring for the colony, the small group of volunteers now fears Mama and the others will be killed because Middlesex Borough and county officials say the animals are a health hazard and must be removed.
That edict has sparked a battle that has drawn attention from animal lovers from North Carolina to Ohio. They’ve sent a flood of anxious, and sometimes angry, e-mails to save the felines.
“They’re not just wild cats, they’re cats that are cared for. They’ve all been spayed and neutered,” said Muriel Chamberlain, who along with Maryann DeChellis does most of the feeding, with help from a few other women. Chamberlain, a 40-year member of the church, paid $3,500 for a 6-foot-high vinyl shed built on a wooden platform to house the cats in the field behind the church.
Read: Claws come out in fight over Middlesex cat colony at nj.com
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