{"id":20649,"date":"2025-10-31T09:47:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T09:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/20649\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T09:47:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T09:47:11","slug":"bucks-county-spca-rescues-70-from-unlicensed-cat-shelter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/20649\/","title":{"rendered":"Bucks County SPCA rescues 70 from unlicensed cat shelter"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story originally appeared on 6abc.<\/a>
The director of CATS Bridge to Rescue in Bensalem will face animal cruelty charges, according to Bucks County SPCA.\n<\/p>\n

The SPCA and Bensalem Animal Control saved 71 neglected cats and kittens from the nonprofit organization, which opened in 2009.\n<\/p>\n

Cindy Kelly, the SPCA\u2019s communications and development director, said they removed two kittens from the rescue on Tuesday, which died from a highly contagious virus.\n<\/p>\n

On Wednesday morning, they returned to take the remaining animals.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a chronic suffering. This didn\u2019t happen overnight,\u201d said Kelly. \u201cThere was just a lot of trash and debris and animal feces, smelled really strong of urine, a lot of flies, fleas. Most of the cats were actively scratching and very uncomfortable.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

Kelly said the cats are receiving treatment for fleas, ear mites and respiratory infections, among other things, at both shelters in Lahaska and Quakertown.\n<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, CATS Bridge to Rescue volunteers said they planned to close its doors at the end of the month and tried to find forever homes for all the cats.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all heartbroken,\u201d said Amanda, who is the rescue\u2019s adoption and volunteer coordinator. \u201cWe love the animals. We care about them.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Amanda said it\u2019s unfortunate they did not receive any warnings from officials.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure what they consider unsanitary conditions. Rescues will have smells. They always do,\u201d said Amanda. \u201cWe would never let our cats be in unsafe conditions.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been there before in the past and mandated that corrections were made, which is our normal process,\u201d said Kelly. \u201cAt times, she (director) would make improvements, but clearly things just got to a point where it was unacceptable.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Kelly said this case highlights a glaring gap in animal cruelty laws in Pennsylvania.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cDog kennels are licensed. Animal shelters are licensed and inspected. However, cat rescues are not. There\u2019s no one that\u2019s licensing and inspecting cat rescues, and sadly, we see this type of scenario play out again and again,\u201d said Kelly.\n<\/p>\n

We reached out to state leaders for more information on legislation to prevent this from happening again.\n<\/p>\n

While these cats are not up for adoption yet, the SPCA said many other cats are available. They\u2019re waiving the adoption fee for October. Supporters can also donate to the animal relief fund.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story originally appeared on 6abc.The director of CATS Bridge to Rescue in Bensalem will face animal cruelty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[2153,191,193,192,194,14224],"class_list":["post-20649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bensalem","tag-6abc","tag-bensalem","tag-bensalem-headlines","tag-bensalem-news","tag-bensalem-township","tag-bucks-county-spca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}