PRESS RELEASE:
Starting back in July of 2011, the southern New Jersey animal rescue Joa's Arc discovered a cat hoarding situation. Although Joa's Arc mainly rescues special needs shelter animals, our volunteers were some of the first to gain the trust of the home owners. From that day, Joa’s Arc worked endless hours for several months for the sake of the cats - raising funds to get some of the cats fixed, treating several cats with special needs, finding donations of food, taking over toys for the cats, fostering cats and networking to find homes for as many as possible.
Following just a few trips to this house of cats, Joa’s Arc volunteers realized that saving all the cats would take a great deal of team work. After saying the words, "We will save them all. We have to," Joa's Arc's own Joyce Moyer reached out to Confessions: Animal Hoarding. Now, Joa’s Arc can finally announce that these cats were rescued thanks to a lot of hard work, kind people, teamwork and Animal Planet's Confessions: Animal Hoarding.
It is important to add that the home owners voluntarily participated in the show and in giving up their animals. Partner organizations Almost Home Animal Shelter, St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center, the Humane Society of Atlantic County and the AWA in Voorhees assisted in the rescue of 165 cats. Finally Home Farm and the AWA also assisted in fostering and placing several feral cats from this house as well. It was an amazing, heart wrenching experience, but worth it because, in the end, these cats were saved!
The story will air on Animal Planet's new hit series Confessions: Animal Hoarding. The series explores stories of people who own more pets then they can care for. The problem of animal hoarding is little understood, but far more common than most people realize. There are over 3000 reported cases a year, and at least ten times that number that go unreported. The series brings families together to voluntarily find humane solutions that work for both pets and people. If you know someone who might be an animal hoarder, you can learn more at www.animalhoardingproject.com
The story Joa's Arc participated in is scheduled to air January 27, 2012 @10 pm EST and PST.
Please go to Joa's Arc website for more information on our efforts to save animals: http://joasarc.blogspot.com/
