This is Tongass Voices, a series from KTOO sharing weekly perspectives from the homelands of the Áak’w Kwáan and beyond.
Juneau’s cat population has been growing out of control for the last few years. Juneau Animal Rescue relies on fosters to help with litters of kittens that people find around town, under buildings and porches.
Tara Thornton is one of JAR’s fosters — she regularly has one or two litters of kittens with or without a nursing mom. Thornton has a passion for caring for these cats, but she says, sometimes it’s a bit hard to give them back.
Listen:
The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Tara Thornton: My goal is to never cry at JAR. It’s okay to cry once you get in the car after you give them back. That’s my rule for myself. No crying in JAR, no crying before you drop them off. You always give them forehead kisses and snuggles before you drop them off.
And realize like you’re doing an amazing service for their lives and you’re contributing to their success, and then finding loving homes and letting yourself then cry it out that evening and maybe get some pizza and ice cream, you know?
I’m Tara Thornton. I foster kittens for Juneau Animal Rescue, and it’s an amazing thing to contribute to the community, and also just so fun to interact with kittens and watch them grow and develop into cats.
My history of fostering kittens – my mom went to school for zoology, and all I can remember is she always had rescues, like I grew up with rescues in the house. She was always taking in injured animals, specifically cats. Like, she’s definitely a cat lover. So I have lots of memories of being in a Walmart parking lot in the bushes, trying to capture kittens as a little kid.
Something that’s so important to me is contributing to the community and protecting the cats, as many as I can without letting it overtake my life. Like this is the try to focus on. Like this is the part I can contribute to, is the fostering. I can’t fix all the problems that go [on] out there and spay, neuter everyone’s cats for them, but I can focus on keeping the babies alive and getting them to the point where they can be adopted by the public.
Juneau Animal Rescue is amazing to partner with. I love fostering for them. I feel so supported. I can text or call with any questions. They provide food and litter, wet food, dry food and litter, and just – they’re [an] amazing group of people that are just so compassionate anytime I go in there for checkups and they’re excited to see the babies as they get older and less spicy. And so it really feels like it’s a good team.
If anyone has been thinking about adopting or fostering, now is the time to act on that, because jar has so many cats within their care, and all their regular cat fosters have multiple litters that they’re taking care of right now. So there’s only so many of us, so we really do need help. For anybody who’s even been curious and thinking about it, to volunteer time, resources, money, whatever you can do. Your home, if you can.
You can let JAR know your level of experience and comfortability and that you’re new, and get into it that way, and maybe take a senior cat – a little bit lower responsibility, or, like less time responsibility, but still really needed. Because I can’t take on three adult cats that need medication every day along with my two litters, and I’m sure the other kitten fosters are in the same boat.
So we would really need a house that could take one cat that needs medication every day, or one house that could take a bonded senior pair of cats until they could be adopted. So any help is needed, and very much so appreciated.
