SAN DIEGO — A San Diego nonprofit has fed a million meals to orphaned kittens around the United States, protecting the most vulnerable population in animal shelters across the country.
Hannah Shaw is the founder of Orphan Kitten Club, a national 501(c)3 charitable organization offering lifesaving funding and resources to decrease euthanasia rates and increase quality of care for neonatal kittens in shelters coast to coast. She is also known across the U.S. as the Kitten Lady.
Shaw said the labor-intensive schedule and delicate care a neonatal kitten needs is one reason they are often euthanized in animal shelters.
“This is a population that is traditionally underserved,” Shaw said. “They have been the most euthanized feline population in shelters for as long as I’ve been involved, and so we’re on a mission to change that and to give better outcomes to kittens in shelters.”
Her nonprofit launched a Got Formula? grant program to relieve some of the burden, providing more than one million meals to bottle feed orphaned zero- to 8-week-old kittens in more than 50 U.S. shelters and rescues.
“We never want a lack of supplies to be a reason for a kitten to come into a shelter and be euthanized. We want them to say ‘OK, we have the supplies that we need, we can provide them to foster parents.’”
According to Shelter Animals Count, more than three million cats and kittens entered shelters and rescues across America, and an estimated 10% were euthanized.
Neonatal kittens, ages zero to 8 weeks, accounted for approximately half of euthanization because of the specialized skills, supplies, veterinary expertise and overnight care they require.
Amanda Hodder is the founder of Kitten Rescue Life in San Diego. Her nonprofit received 100 pounds of formula and she said having it on hand allows them to focus on saving more lives instead of choosing who lives.
“Those are decisions like nobody really wants to have to be responsible for making and so having a great like this makes those decisions a lot easier,” Hodder said.
For other shelters around the country who are overcrowded or don’t have access to as many resources, Hodder said this life-saving formula grant allows more of them to make sure no kitten is euthanized because of hunger.
“When we have access to multiple foster homes, when we have access to a hundred pounds of formula, we’re able to say yes right away, we don’t have to hesitate, we don’t have to scramble to try to ask for funds or ask for supplies, we have everything we need,” she said.
“May through September marks kitten season for us, a time when we intake an average of 90 kittens,” said Danielle Giroux, president and CEO of The Runaways Animal Rescue in Port Richey, Florida. “This influx of kittens adds additional stress to our already limited resources, so receiving formula from Orphan Kitten Club has literally been lifesaving and has provided essential care for these vulnerable kittens.”
Shaw said she wants to go bigger and will never stop working to save the tiny but mighty.
“If we can gather that community of support through our club members and our donors and then distribute that throughout the nation where it’s needed most, then we can really change the world for these little guys,” she said.
Shaw also recently released a new book called “Cats of the World” with her husband, Andrew Marttila, who is a professional cat photographer. Over a five-period, the pair visited 30 countries and even more individual communities, exploring the lives of cats, feline welfare and cat culture on a global scale.
Shaw said Orphan Kitten Club has awarded more $3 million in Mightycat grants to save the lives of thousands of kittens in almost 100 communities. To become a monthly supporter of Orphan Kitten Club, visit donate.orphankittenclub.org/join.
Oct. 29 is National Cat Day, a day to raise public awareness of cat adoption.