Last weekend a group of people set out traps in Lincoln Park in reaction to, I think but am not 100% certain of, the revelation that some members of Jersey City Animal Control had been depositing cats in the park rather than with LHS.

On Sunday afternoon 14 cats were dropped off with us.

What an afternoon. I think the staff handled everything really well. It's not typical for so many animals to show up at once so it was a bit of a strain to make sure we had everything in place. Which we did.

The folks who trapped the animals rang us up before coming by so we had a little time to prepare.

Thankfully the cats were, for the most part, cooperative and moved from the traps to their carriers with minimal fuss. Heck, we were able to vax and deworm all of them right away too. This is not always possible with seriously pissed off cats but the staff was able to get everything done.

I wonder if people appreciate the work that some of the shelter staff do. We are an animal control facility so this is our job. But consider what we do every day for the animals in our care.

Animals are brought to us in a variety of states - anxious, scared, depressed, whatever... We do our best to make them comfortable in their new setting and try not to force too much on them. But we do need to vaccinate them so that, if they do get loose, they don't cause too many problems.

But every day, we clean their cages. Depending on the animal this can mean anything from letting a cat loose on the floor if we know its demeanor and it has been tested for the major feline diseases to trying to lure it into the carrier in its crate so we can safely clean its litter box and bedding and give it fresh food and water.

Once again, this is our job. We are paid to do this work and, many of us, really enjoy it. But we are also putting ourselves in a bit of danger every day. It's a chosen danger but I wonder if people think of this when they're surrendering their animals or when they toss the cat out on the street for other people to deal with.

So back to number 15.

This early evening a 15th cat was brought in from the trapping in Lincoln park.

I'm told that 21 cats were trapped, in total but several of them were deemed feral and were neutered and returned to the park to live out their time in their home territory.

I don't know if we will be getting any more from this round of trapping. I hope the cats are all adoptable and will come around after some time with us. If not, I hope there are resources to pay for spay/neuter so the critters can go back to the park.