In 2019, Lydia Swanson left their dorm in the Litchfield Towers for a walk in South Oakland and discovered a colony of stray cats on Yarrow Way. With a lack of resources to help cats in need, Swanson collaborated with another student to rescue the cats and eventually founded their own nonprofit, Oakland TNR Coalition, to lower stray cat overpopulation in Pittsburgh.
Oakland TNR Coalition is a nonprofit that specializes in trapping, neutering, vaccinating and releasing feral, stray, homeless and abandoned cats in the Oakland area. Since 2019, the nonprofit has rescued about 700 cats and helped hundreds of strays find happy homes.
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To adopt a cat with Oakland TNR, applicants must verify their address, have any current pets screened and be spayed or neutered and ensure all current pet vaccinations are up to date.
The process to foster a cat is “almost identical” to adoption. After undergoing a quarantine period at Swanson’s house, rescued cats are either fostered or taken to Petco for adoption depending on their personality, needs and foster openings. The nonprofit stays in close contact with foster families, who often aid in the adoption process.
Erin Heintzinger, the volunteer coordinator for Oakland TNR, primarily handles the adoption process with Petco, along with her spouse, Mikey. She is responsible for organizing volunteers to run each shift, which sometimes means taking their place to assist with scooping, playing and feeding, as well as helping the adoption process go smoothly.
“We are just the fail-safe, in my opinion, to make sure that the already existing, well-running system continues to work,” Heintzinger said. “We collect as much data as possible from all the volunteers about the cats. Otherwise, it’s just a gremlin living in your space.”
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Swanson said the most rewarding part of their work with Oakland TNR is getting to give stray cats a better life.
“It’s really just getting to see some of these cats that would otherwise have died on the streets, truly getting to live inside, getting to find a forever home,” Swanson said. “Once you get them inside, you know that they were so scared outside and so nervous, and then just watching them blossom into a little house cat is just [great].”
While Oakland TNR enjoys being able to help stray cats, not all strays they rescue will have the same outcome. According to Swanson, the mortality rate for cats born on the street is roughly 80%.
Swanson said although witnessing cat mortality can be upsetting, they believe any efforts to give them a better life are worth it in the end.
“It really takes an emotional toll on someone to put so much of your emotions and your heart into caring for an animal and then [have] them not make it, but in the same brand, that’s some of the rewarding part,” Swanson said. “Even though they didn’t make it, we still improved their life in the end. They had a bit of an easier time to the end because of something that we did.”