Pahokee Opens for Project Treadstone

What the heck is Pahokee, you ask? If you click on this map, you'll see. It's a city in Florida on our largest lake, Lake Okeechobee. And if you click on a few minus signs to move out, and look all the way east to the ocean and a little bit north you'll see my town: Jupiter.

What's in Pahokee you ask? A branch of Palm Beach County's Animal Care & Control that has been closed for a long, long time and has reopened. They will spay/neuter, vaccinate, tip ears and microchip, and they do not test. The cost is $25 and they will do up to 10 at a time!

Sure, it takes an hour to get there and I have no idea how I'm going to get 10 cats in my car or even trap 10 cats, but I'm still enjoying the honeymoon phase of the concept and reveling in some kind of victory I had nothing to do with.

The cats are getting harder to trap, and I think even if I finally were able to get the spay RV from up north I don't see how I could trap 30 cats in a day at this point no matter how many people volunteer to help. Last night one was trapped in 10 minutes but the other took one hour. There are likely 30 unsterilized cats remaining, but they're doing a very good job of avoiding yours truly.

Here's the biggest feral cat I've ever seen, who looks like somebody's house cat. Big Tom is what they call him. I was in a hurry and it's a terrible photo, but when I get him back this evening I'll have another chance.

I shall redeem myself, I hope, later, with better photos.

And what's a week at Project Treadstone without the obligatory black cat. This time it's Little Black:

Stay tuned also for photos of the eagle's nest down the block that has a baby! I hadn't realized how enormous eagles are; they dwarf hawks. Or at least the hawks here. I guess I'm about to learn more than I ever thought I'd know about eagles. I look forward to sharing.

Comments

[Bea Elliott]

Great news Mary! What a savings... you just can't beat $25/cat.

Big Tom looks like he's got a "wtf" look on his face - you can tell, he's not happy at all :(

That's so cool about the eagle's nest... and a baby! I've got an injured but recovering 2 week old chick in my tub. She's such a tiny peep - We're socializing with the hens everyday... And all of us keep a watchful eye for the hawks. Looking forward to the pictures of the eagle and chick. :)

[Dan]

Okee dokee! Let’s hear it for Pahokee! And Lake Okeechobee!

[Morganna]

You know the cats are probably on to you by now. The ones that are left have been watching, and know that something's up. And they must be the wildest ones, to not be trapped already. Good luck with the last ones!

I think eagles in general dwarf hawks. So exciting to have a nest so close. What kind of eagle? I'm sure you know bald eagles are sometimes put off nesting if humans are too close. But that probably doesn't apply so much here, since they already built the nest and laid an egg.

[Adam Kochanowicz]

I don't know a lot about this but I wonder about taking the cheapest spay/neuter clinics, do you foresee risks of sloppiness or the like in taking these routes? TNR is something I'd really like to get into, but I worry about this.