Animal shelters in the Grand Valley seeing kitten influx

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO) - Some animal shelters in the Grand Valley are reporting a major influx of kittens this kitten season and it’s creating some strain for the shelters.

CLAWS Cat Rescue and Sanctuary said that over the last month they’ve had more than 100 kittens come through the shelter. The shelter said it’s normal to have an influx of kittens annually, but it gets worse every year.

“It seems like every year, it gets worse and worse,” said Ashley Mazrin, Adoption Coordinator for CLAWS. “Because unfortunately the kittens that were born last year are going to be this year’s parents and the more babies that are created and continue to populate, they just keep making more babies and those babies become parents.”

Mazrin said the feral cat population keeps growing and those cats are largely not fixed so they’re allowed to keep reproducing. She said pet owners often aren’t getting their pets fixed either.

“Then you have people with unfixed pets and the pets are going outside, or they live outside or whatever the case may be and they just keep making babies too,” said Mazrin.

It’s not just unique to CLAWS either. The Roice-Hurst Humane Society said it’s also having an influx of kittens at it’s shelter. In the case with CLAWS, Mazrin said part of the issue with having so many kittens is the lack of foster families. She said many of the kittens are too young to stay at the shelter with older cats, so they foster them out. The trouble according to Mazrin is, their foster families are already taking in too many kittens as it is.

“It’s definitely putting a strain on us financially, every baby that we have to feed is more of a cost,” said Mazrin. “With inflation being as high as it is and the price of everything going up, everybody’s pockets are a little tighter right now. So it’s harder and harder to get donations and grant funding and just keep up on the food bill and the litter bill for all of these guys.”

Mazrin said the shelter is needing more volunteers to be foster families and they can use all of the donations that they can get.

“Rescues are doing the best they can right now,” said Mazrin. ”We only have so much room and we only have so much money. Unfortunately it doesn’t grow on trees and we can’t take in more kitties than we can handle which is unfortunate. In a perfect world we’d take every cat and every kitten and find them amazing homes. But unfortunately that’s just not the reality.”

If you’d like to help or donate to CLAWS please visit their website at: https://www.clawsgj.org/

If you’d like to help or donate to the Roice-Hurst Humane Society please visit their website at:https://rhhumanesociety.org/