A total of 81 cats and kittens had to be euthanized by workers at the Animal Care League in Oak Park, after the animals were pulled from a Cicero woman’s home last week.
Tom Van Winkle, executive director of the Animal Care League, said that the shelter often works with Cicero’s animal welfare department.
The Animal Care League, 1013 Garfield, was first notified of the situation by Cicero Animal Control on Monday, June 20, and they received the cats two days later, on June 22.
“We got a call from Cicero animal control saying that they had a hoarding situation,” Van Winkle said. The veterinarian and vet technician on staff for the Animal Care League agreed to look at the animals, which had been living in squalid conditions.
“It was a pretty bad situation,” Van Winkle said. The animals had injuries, illnesses, missing fur, infections, and more.
“They were all extremely, extremely scared and unhandleable,” said Van Winkle. In addition to the other ailments, several of the cats tested positive for feline leukemia, a highly contagious disease that passes quickly from animal to animal, especially through bites. And Van Winkle said scuffles were likely very common in a small house containing more than 80 cats.
“Whether most of them had it or not is impossible to tell. We didn’t test all of them,” Van Winkle said. “Whether they had leukemia or not, they were suffering.”
Van Winkle said he doesn’t know many details about the situation from which the animals were taken, only that it was likely a case of hoarding.
“Hoarders aren’t necessarily bad people. They’re not trying to hurt the animals. Oftentimes they’re trying to do what’s best for the animals,” he said. But if the animals aren’t spayed and neutered, their numbers can grow quickly. The owners, often out of shame or fear, fail to reach out for help and the situation gets out of control.
“That’s how things progress badly,” Van Winkle said. In this case, the feline leukemia made things worse. “The disease just kept propagating itself throughout the whole situation,” he said.
Van Winkle said that the Animal Care League, a non-profit organization that’s been around since the 1970s, mostly adopts animals out. Euthanasia is used only as a last resort, when animals are suffering and cannot be treated medically, or are severely aggressive and pose a threat to humans. Van Winkle said the Animal Care League staff does not take situations like this one lightly.
“It’s very, very hard for them, even when it’s the right thing to do, to euthanize an animal,” he said. “Unfortunately, they’re often the ones that are looked at as the bad guys.”
Van Winkle also praised the Cicero officers, and Animal Welfare Director, Erica Rosas, for their hard work in removing the animals from the house and seeking out vets to provide care. “I think Cicero deserves a pat on the back,” he said.