From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1997:

Cat ladies, and gentlemen, who venture into dark alleys alone to catch and neuter
seemingly endless legions of ferals, could teach the rest of the animal protection cause quite a
lot about patience, endurance, fortitude and strategy.
While Cleveland Amory said he formed the Fund for Animals to put combat boots
on the little old ladies in tennis shoes, younger advocacy leaders long derided cat-rescue as
beneath concern, somehow less important and less glamorous than saving the seals, the
whales, the elephants, and the dolphins. Friends of Animals president Priscilla Feral has a
stronger record than most at seal, whale, elephant and dolphin-saving, yet was ridiculed for
years after she once described herself to media as “a cat lady with a global perspective.”
Cat rescue did eventually become socially acceptable in advocacy circles, largely
through the efforts of ANIMAL PEOPLE publisher Kim Bartlett, who insisted in her former
role as editor of The Animals’ Agenda, 1986-1992, that activists had to address the suffering
in their own back yards in order to earn credibility with the public. Eventually so many cat
rescuers identified themselves among the activist donor base that today almost everyone in a
leadership capacity at least pretends to rescue one or two cats per million dollars raised by
direct mail, including those who figuratively tied tin cans to Bartlett’s tail for putting cat rescue
on the animals’ agenda. Some advised then––in writing––that activists should stay away
from the homeless cat problem, as a problem beyond solution.

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