Boy Scouts are committed to “help other people at all times” and “keep […] morally straight”. It is a wonderful and heartwarming ambition on its own, but what makes it even better is that this wish to help and do good appears to include our four-legged friends, too.
The Boy Scouts of Troop 3310 in Atlanta, Georgia, demonstrated their deep compassion for all living beings when they began the project of building portable winter shelters for stray cats.
Many people still mistakenly believe that cats are self-sufficient enough to not fare badly as strays.
But the sad truth is, that while the average age of a house cat is about 10-15 years, the average stray cat only survives to be 2-5 years.
Exposed to busy roads, starvation, accidents, illness, and other animals, these poor, homeless felines lead tragically dangerous lives. Exposure to the elements is another serious danger to their lives, particularly during the winter.
If they cannot find shelter when the temperatures drop, cats are at serious risk of developing hypothermia or suffering frostbite. Every year strays freeze to death because they have nowhere to go for shelter. But Troop 3310 set out to change that.
LifeLine Animal Project rescues as many stray cats as they can, and also supervises a number of cat colonies. Cats that have become too feral to live indoors are trapped, neutered, and released by the group to make sure that they do not contribute to the increase of the stray population.
Many of these strays live together in so-called “cat colonies” and LifeLine Animal Project does everything they can to keep them fed and safe. Thanks to the Boy Scouts, they are now able to provide these cats with these little shelters which will keep them from being exposed to the harsh winter weather.