Rescued cats get new home

Once in awhile, it’s good to take time out to realize that good things are happening around the world all the time, every day. It’s easy to become cynical and miss them.

I’d like to bring your attention to the Sylvester Foundation, an animal rescue ranch in Hawaii.

Of course, I am reminded of our two cats, both of which were orphans and were both abandoned in a paper bag in the middle of a road, to be ran over. They were brought back to the company I work for and we ended up taking them in. They are Maxwell and Mimi.

About 200 “orphan” cats move to lodging donated after their care home lost its lease.

After months of searching for a new home for its “orphans,” the Sylvester Foundation expected to finish moving 200 cats into a new temporary animal shelter today in Waimanalo.

Wet, muddy ground at the new site off the Kalanianaole Highway and a contractor who failed to install a fence Friday meant that the cats' new home wasn’t finished yesterday, when 25 Servco Pacific employees and a dozen Troop 153 Boy Scouts showed up at 9 a.m. to help move cats.

So instead of transporting felines as planned, the groups cleared brush around a Quonset hut and shed, stacked lumber, moved plants and put up a shade awning for the new “cattery.”

The foundation considered leasing another piece of Waimanalo land managed by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, its former landlord. But the tract was rejected because it would take too much time and money to mitigate flood hazards.

Several attempted deals with private landowners also have fallen through.

The Waimanalo plot readied for cats yesterday is DLNR land leased by a good Samaritan who will let the foundation stay there until it finds a permanent location, said Bernice Bowers, a Sylvester Foundation board of directors member and a Servco employee.

Meanwhile, pot-bellied pigs, exotic birds, chickens and geese will go to a North Shore farm, and the foundation's eight dogs will move in with Sylvester Foundation founder Candy Lake.

Lake named the foundation after the first cat she rescued.

The all-volunteer foundation's annual budget is $65,000 to $75,000, all of which goes to animal food, care and maintenance, Lake said yesterday.

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