WINTHROP — Protectors of Animal Life Society, or P.A.L.S. No-Kill Cat Shelter, celebrated its 40th year of helping area felines with an open house Saturday, where attendees snuggled dozens of friendly cats and toured a new addition.
The private, nonprofit shelter was founded in 1979 by Margaret Fuller and Georgia Wisendanger. Shelter Board of Directors Vice President Paul LaRiviere said the shelter was little more than a pen attached to a trailer. This year, the shelter is celebrating its 40th anniversary and some major improvements to the building made in late 2018 through two large donations from the late Robert Martin, formerly of New Sharon, and the estate of Kendra Shaw, formerly of Gardiner.
The shelter receives no public funding from local municipalities. Support is through memberships, fund-raising and other gifts. Executive Director Theresa Silsby said the shelter’s operating budget falls between $200,000 and $300,000 each year.
The shelter is housing about 170 cats, according to Silsby. LaRiviere, who has served on the board for about eight years, said the shelter finds homes for about 200 cats each year.
P.A.L.S. is home to cats of all backgrounds, including feral cats and cats with feline immunodeficiency virus, which is similar to HIV in humans. Silsby said the shelter is seeing its seasonal influx of kittens. She said unspayed and unneutered feral and pet cats breed more easily when the weather is nice and the shelter will see an increase in kittens until about November.
Silsby said the shelter is working on population control by taking in feral cats, but the procedure can be costly. She said some locals feed feral cats with good intentions, but a population of five cats can quickly become 40 before an animal control officer is called to the property.
“Everybody’s got to work together,” Silsby said. “It’s the shelters, it’s the animal control officers (and) it’s the people. People need to buckle down and (spay and neuter their cats).”
Shelter employee and board member Brenda Poulin, who has been affiliated with the shelter for 18 years, said the transformation during that time has been profound. She said the shelter “was tiny” before the addition and has upgraded its security since an incident years ago when vandals cut open a pen and released a number of the shelter’s cats. She said the shelter has doubled adoptions since she came on, mainly, she said, through the use of social media use, which Poulin said is one of Silsby’s strengths.
“(The shelter has) done some amazing things over the years,” she said. “Theresa has been a godsend.”
The new addition provided a maternity room, which was filled with four mothers with litters of kittens on Saturday. Other rooms added included a senior cat room, a quarantine room and much-need storage space. The largest room for adult cats got a new “catio,” a screened-in portion to give the cats a little more room to stretch their legs or lay in the sun.
LaRiviere said the addition will give them room to take care of more cats, but increases operating expenses, which is the next “big issue” for shelter officials.
The addition is a welcome sight to donors Andy and Rosanna Toth, of Lewiston, who said it was important to see the shelter expanding. The Toths said they have seven cats at home and four of them were saved from a dumpster outside of Andy Toth’s workplace.
“Cats are throwaways to so many people,” Rosanna Toth said.
“(P.A.L.S.) can’t afford to take care of all these animals,” Andy Toth said, when he was asked why he thought it was important to donate. “Some people like to donate to human causes, we like to donate to animal ones.”
P.A.L.S. is open every day from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 188 Case Road. More information can be found on the “PALS No-Kill Cat Shelter” Facebook page.
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