A Bit About Stray Feral and Cattown Rescues

Our mission is to help cats . . .

Stray Feral Rescue is a 501c3 non-profit established in 2005 in St Paul MN.  CatTown Rescue of Amery, WI joined under the Stray Feral fiscal umbrella in 2012. In 2014 the two groups combined under the same executive director, who had been doing rescue work for almost 40 years. Stray Feral Rescue maintains a corporate address in Lakeland MN, making it a legal nonprofit in MN and CatTown is a nonprofit registered in WI, making Stray Feral Rescue/CatTown able to conduct fundraising events in both MN and WI. This allows us to help cats in both states. Our operating office is in WI so cats needing help often need to come to WI to get it.

As there are so many rescue groups in the Twin Cities area Stray Feral has specialized more and more in dealing with colony cats and unwanted outside cats. These cats are often feral so not adoptable, and there are few groups that have the resources to deal with them. We now have 11 colonies in eastern MN and western WI, from Taylor's Falls MN down to S. St Paul and we manage approximately 350 plus cats, all spayed and neutered, vaccinated for rabies (and other feline diseases if possible). We supply food, kitty housing, and vet care. Our colonies rely on the people living where the cats live, to do the daily feeding and watering and letting us know if new cats show up or if injuries occur.

WE DO NOT HAVE A SHELTER. We get a number of calls and emails from people who want to come and play with the cats and visit our shelter. We do not have a building or a shelter. We rely totally on foster families to house cats that can not stay outdoors or are waiting for homes, and our colonies are located on private property. Our agreement with the colony caregivers is that we do not give out their address as they do not want to deal with strangers wandering about in their yards or barns. We need to keep our colony caregivers safe as they are also are faced with the legal liability issues if people are wandering about on their property and grabbing at cats, and keep the cats safe from people. We do not tell anyone where our colonies are located so please don't press us for that information.

We believe that all cats deserve a chance to live happy, safe lives and deserve to be treated well.

We do take in unwanted pets when we have Foster room available. We do our best to take in cats belonging to people going into nursing homes or hospice so they will not have to deal with the guilt of having their beloved cat euthanized if nobody will take it. We also do our best to take in cats that were left behind when someone died (and we do check to make sure that was the case as people have called telling us "mom" died and there was nowhere for the cat, when "mom" actually died in 1985 . . . .

If you have chosen a cat you would like to meet to adopt we will arrange to bring the cat to you or get the foster family's permission to visit the cat there.

In general, we do as much as we can to help lower the pet population thru spay and neuter, we try to save as many cats as we can, re-home as many of the abandoned friendly cats as possible, try to return lost cats, and help people to keep their pets by helping them with expenses like vet bills if our budget allows.