AR-News: (US OR) Letters: Human hazards of animal rescue are the worst part

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

 http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2004/04/05/news/opinion/2lets5.txt 
I volunteer because I'm on a mission from God. That mission is to help 
animals abused, neglected or unfixed by humans. The personal costs, physical, 
emotional and financial, have been extreme.

Last night, I returned to a low-income Corvallis complex where I have spent 
hundreds of hours in freezing, storming conditions trapping feral cats that 
result from unfixed free-roaming tenant cats. I was intercepted by the manager's 
wife, who made vague claims about me stealing and that I was not to be on the 
property although she would give no specific reasons. She then called the 
cops. 
I don't steal. The police claimed the property management company, a local 
nonprofit, were the ones who did not want me there although that group once 
claimed they would try to get me reimbursed for my expenses. I guess police action 
was my reimbursement. Most cats were fixed, so time for me to be dumped in 
the trash.

Such are the rewards of a volunteer. One woman said, "Well, you'll get your 
reward in Heaven," to which I replied, "And why would I want to end up in some 
Heaven full of humans?"

Had I not intervened there at tenants' request, the cats would have overrun 
the place, been killed by animal control or angry neighbors or disease or 
starvation.

My opinion of humans has been further fouled. But I do not do this work to 
help humans anymore. I'm on a mission from God to help the animals.

Jody Harmon





 
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