Don Knabe Using Tax Money To Continue Tormenting the Rancho Cats.

A fence to trap the cats in and to keep Fail-Safe out.

Today workers from Board-Ups Unlimited (818)368-9008 were at Rancho

putting poles in the ground. These men led by Peter F. Stevens worked all day until late evening. The plan is to waste taxpayer's money and put up a chain link fence around the old abandoned buildings at Rancho. Why? My guess is that they want to seal off the area so Fail-Safe voluteers will no longer be able to get near the cats. They will not be allowed to trap, feed the cats, give the cats water, or even attend to a sick, trapped or injured cat.

In a time where money is so scarce, it's a surprise to me the LA County Supervisor Don Knabe would spend so much money in an attempt to keep Fail-Safe from interfering with their continued animal abuse against the cats. What will they think of next? We can't let this happen. They have boarded up the holes, used by the cats to hide, in the past and it ended up in the death of one cat. Difference is last time they didn't put a fence up first.

Keep calling Knabe (213) 974-4444 or e-mail Don@lacbos.org

Don't let them tell you the fence is for any other purpose. Why are they putting it up now that they are trying to trap the cats?

Why is the County spending money on a situation that can best be handled by Fail-Safe 4 Felines at no cost to the hard working American?

How can they assure us that the cats will be safe, when they have never cared about the safety of the cats?

What makes us think they will make sure all the cats are out of underneath the buildings before boarding them up when they don't so much as care if the cats have the basics, food and water?

You Tube Video

A thank you to Jack Perez for making this wonderful video for us. You can see the situation first hand and won't have to rely on LA County Supervisor Don Knabe's lies. I'm sure he has never and will never set foot at Rancho Los Amigos Rehabilitation Center. Please circulate this video around and call Don Knabe's office and tell him to stop wasting our taxpayer's money and to call off LAACC from trapping the Rancho cats.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wcXs503GgQ

Rancho Cats Terrified at LA County Downey Shelter

The Rancho cats have had their lives turned upside down in a matter of weeks. Eleven years they had followed the same routine and had been around the same people. Now they have had their home invaded, all hours of the day, by strange people with traps that are out to get them and take them to the animal shelter where 100% of ferals are killed.

The shelter is no place for a feral cat as the only "service" they can provide them with is death. Read a first hand account of the horrific experience David and Linda endured when they went to pick-up several Rancho cats that had been trapped and taken to the LA County Downey Shelter.

On 10/31/2008 David and Linda East, with Fail-Safe 4 Felines, went to L.A. County Animal Control at 12585 Garfield, Downey, Ca to "bail out" 4 cats. 3 of these cats had been trapped by L.A. County Animal Control on 10/25/2008. The other one had been trapped by L.A. County Animal Control on 10/30/2008.

After paying the fees L. A. County Animal Control required to release the cats we were escorted to where the 3 cats were located. I waited by the back door, I was not allowed to go in. By the back door of this building, was a sally port. A sally port is a chain link fence attached to the building. There were 2 L.A. County Animal Control officers, a man and a woman, retrieving the cats and they handed the first 2 cats to me and I left them in the car with my husband. The woman went to get the 3rd cat, it got away from her and ran into the sally port. The orange cat, who is feral was totally terrified and scared. The cat climbed up to the top of the chain link fencing, hanging from the top. All this is happening in a matter of seconds. The lady officer went back into the room and got a net. The other officer had the carrier up, as to drop the cat in once they got it. The cat was so traumatized, he began to urinate while hanging on the fence. He urinated all over the carrier, inside and out. They finally netted him. I asked that they clean the inside of the carrier, before putting him in, they did not and just threw him in the urine filled carrier. The man brought the carrier with the cat outside to me and I took him to the car. During this ordeal with the 3rd cat the animal control officer could be heard saying, I thought I could handle the cat.

The story does not end here. The 4th cat was in the spay and neuter clinic, which was now closed. I was instructed to come back to the reception area and someone would get the cat. You guessed it, the same officer who let the orange boy escape. She took me down a hall inside where it looked as if only employees should be. The freshly spayed cat was on the top cage. This, by the way, is the lactating momma that LAACC REFUSED to let return back to Rancho to care for her kittens. The officer said "I can handle her." Gee where have I heard that? As soon as she opened the cage door, the cat bolted out and ran and hid behind some of the stainless steel cages. The officer kept trying to get her but was unable to. Another person, a woman came in. She keep telling a large dog in a cage named "Tanner" to be quiet. This woman was in street clothes. She climbed up on top of these cages to see where the cat was. The cat was back in the very corner, hiding. There was wooden pole, with some sharp things on one end. The women on top of the cages used the pole, I do not know which end she used, I could not see from where I was in the room. She put it in between the cages and the window to try and push the cat out. I keep saying, "please remember this cat just got spayed today". After what seemed like an eternity, the officers realized they could not get the cat out, that the cages needed to be moved. The cages are not on wheels. The woman in street clothes, got down, took the dog (Tanner) out of the cage to her car. The dog had continually barked during this whole time further terrifying the momma cat. Back up was called and another officer came to help. Once he saw me in the room, he told me to leave and wait outside by my car. I estimated this horrible ordeal went on for a least 15 - 20 minutes.

Approx. 5 - 10 minutes later the officer came out to our car with the newly spayed cat in the carrier. His clothes and body were covered in dirt. The cat was so scared and traumatized, she was shaking. We put the carrier in the car, and covered her with a towel. We drove straight to the vets office to have the 4 cats evaluated. The newly spayed feral cat is still currently at the vets to be monitored for internal damage or any other damage that could have easily occurred during this very traumatic and unnecessary ordeal the cat was put thru.

Their staff is clearly not trained to handle feral cats and they want to take on 100 ferals from Rancho? I hate to think of what else happened to the momma cat for those long 5-10 minutes that she was left alone in that room with the animal control officers...

Pictured above is Orange Boy trying to recover from his long ordeal at a foster home.

Risk of Disease at Rancho Los Amigos

The following is an article by Patricia J Meredith, MD, PhD. She analyses the situation at Rancho Los Amigos and provides facts about the risks of disease.

Patricia J Meredith, MD, PhD writes:
This has been an excellently managed colony of cats for over 10 years, and over 90% of the population there has been spayed/neutered, microchipped, dewormed, and vaccinated. Unfortunately, the nature and location of this old and abandoned part of Rancho has pre-disposed it to excessive dumping of tame cats from the neighboring communities. In addition, tame cats from nearby County Animal Shelter have shown up on occasion with pink collars on, identifying them as such. Despite continuous efforts by feral cat caretakers to stay abreast of the situation, in situations such as this it is oftentimes impossible to achieve a 100% track record.

Mr. Knabe, on his website at, www.knabe.com is citing a dramatic increase in the cat population at Rancho as reason to claim the TNR program there as a failure, which is an unfortunate and erroneous statement. Clearly, without the efforts of the Failsafe-4-Feline rescue group, the number of cats on the premises would have been 10-fold by now. I refer Mr. Knabe to Dr. Mackieʼs famous "rule of 7's" for calculated hard and irrefutable mathematical evidence of this.

Mr Knabe also sites reasons regarding the health of the children at a local day care center as being paramount in his decision. He states " Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (DPH) has determined that the current conditions pose a public health risk", and that " unmanaged colonies of feral cats could potentially pass on organisms related to human disease such as rabies, plague, endemic typhus, toxoplasmosis, and cat-scratch disease."

Today I spoke with a veterinarian at the California Department of Public Health, to get his opinion on these statements. He informed me that there has not been a case of plague in California in decades, and that when it does occur it is usually in the foothills. Likewise, he indicated that there has not been an incidence of reported rabies in cats in southern California in decades, the most recent being in a northern most county of the state. He advised me to urge those interested in learning more about the true facts regarding these diseases to consult the department's web site at www.CDPH.CA.gov.

After several hours of browsing the site, I have enclosed as attachment some key information regarding rabies, plague, and typhus, and the statistics regarding incidence of these diseases in California. Read and judge for yourself......rest assured the chances of acquiring these diseases from one of the feral cats in this well-managed colony at Rancho is quite remote. Not only are most of the cats vaccinated against rabies, the cats have also kept the grounds rodent free, thereby significantly minimizing the chance of acquiring murine typhus and plague. By removing the cats, the residents in the community are actually being put at increased risk of acquiring these diseases........something Mr. Knabe is failing to reveal to the public.

Lastly, the sand box at the child care center should always be kept covered with a plastic tarp, regardless of the presence of cats or not. Nearly all day care centers, pre-schools, and private child care facilities keep covers over their sand boxes. It keeps out falling debris, insects and spiders, and other critters from using the box. Despite the suggestion from Failsafe to keep the box covered, I drove by the Child Care Center this weekend and it still remains uncovered. To me, questions just how concerned the Child Care Center really is about the health and welfare of the children there who do play in the box.

--Patricia J. Meredith, MD, PhD


Information below from www.CDPH.CA.gov
RISK OF PLAGUE IN CALIFORNIA

Plague is a bacterial disease people can get if they are bitten by an infected rodent flea. Most persons with plague develop fever and swollen lymph nodes. Plague is treatable with antibiotics, but can progress to severe and sometimes fatal illness if diagnosis and treatment are delayed. Squirrels, chipmunks, and other rodents in many areas of California can carry plague. Persons visiting, hiking, or camping in these areas should avoid contact with rodents.

Plague in California occurs in the foothills, mountains, and coastal mountain areas (shaded areas on map). Plague is absent from the southeastern desert and the Central Valley. Plague is most common in the rural and undeveloped mountains, as well as the suburban foothills of some larger cities.
The last known human cases of plague in urban areas occurred in Los Angeles in the 1920s.


Typhus (Murine Typhus)
Typhus is a bacterial illness transmitted by fleas from wild rats or opossums. Typhus is typically a mild illness, is readily treated with antibiotics, and rarely results in death. Only a dozen or so cases are reported each year in California and most of these are in residents of a few small areas in the Los Angeles basin. Persons living in areas endemic for typhus should avoid contact with opossums and maintain proper flea control on their outdoor pets