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Laurie
Welcome to the Save Samoa site! I’m the site’s owner; my name is Laurie D. Goldstein. I’ve had the great fortune to be married to the love of my life since December 1993. Gary and I are partners in business. We are both Senior Vice Presidents of a mid-sized boutique brokerage firm in New York City. I’m a graduate of a Quaker College, and I’ve earned the professional designation of Chartered Financial Analyst, which skill I apply to my work as a publishing analyst on “Wall Street.”
Gary and I have no children, but we now have five "kids" who live inside with us: Lazlo, Sheldon, Spooky, Tuxedo, and Flowerbelle. They were all feral rescues. We practice trap-neuter-release (TNR) for the seemingly endless stream of forgotten barn cats around here, and we care for a colony of about 5 ferals who permanently live in this area.
We’re pretty new to cats, actually. We live in a small farming community, and there are many forgotten barn cats and their progeny in the area. Gary used to hate cats, and I am VERY allergic to them. But our move to devoted cat-lovers started very simply with a garbage-can problem. I’ve always loved all animals, and instead of trying to run off the litterbug that kept raiding the can, I suggested we feed her. She was a scraggly looking thing. You can read Booger’s story, but suffice it to say – one cat leads to another.
When the kittens first turned up in our yard in the summer of 2002, we didn’t know what to do. I got on-line and found what I believe to be a great (and very helpful!) site, www.TheCatSite.com. There I discovered the world of ferals and strays, and Gary and I took on the challenge of trying to help end their terrible plight. We cared for the kittens and their mum, but in the meantime Gary became an expert trapper, catching the many cats attracted by the food we put out in order to get them vaccinated, spayed or neutered, and then re-releasing them. We adopted several of the kittens once they were 12 weeks old (old enough to leave mum), and we worked on socializing the others so that they would make the wonderful pets they have become (…and I started on prescription medication to combat my severe allergy to cats!) Unfortunately, we weren’t able to trap all the females before at least one more became pregnant, and we had to repeat the process with another batch of kittens that fall.
As for Samoa…well…he’s a different case. The owner of The Cat Site frequently posts headlines of cats in the news. I clicked on the link to the article she posted in the TCS Feral Colonies forum in September 202, and became immediately enraged. Here’s how that article began: “Our neighborhood has been terrorized lately by a wily old tomcat I call Osama bin Laden.” The story didn’t get any better from there, either. I immediately wrote a response to the journalist:
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Dear Mr. Horsley:
I have to take grave issue with your presentation of that poor cat. Please bear in mind it is humans that created this situation by not properly caring for their cats. Education is what is important here, not condemnation. Literally millions of cats are left to fend for themselves through the ignorance of people who do not neuter or spay their pets or barn cats. EDUCATION in your column would be far more beneficial to the millions of needy animals as opposed to the condemnation of one poor sole who is not responsible for the fate bestowed upon him. I did not laugh reading your article, I cried. This cat may have been dumped by someone who didn't want him anymore (many families having babies for the first time do this). He may have run away from an abusive household, which could explain the reason for his attacks. He may have been born feral, and kicked around and had rocks thrown at him his whole life. Why would he act any differently than he does if that were the case? Either way, again, I repeat, this poor sole is not responsible for the situation in which he finds himself. He is a survivor with a stronger will and more smarts than most.
You say "Feral cats have no business setting up shop in a residential neighborhood." As if they choose! You make it seem as if you and your neighbors are the victims. This poor Tom is the victim. The victim of uncaring, uneducated people. And you are simply perpetuating the
problem, not helping anyone stop or address the problem. You could have used this opportunity to educate yourself as to the problem of feral and stray cats in this country. You could have used this opportunity to learn about all the good work being done by thousands across the country
to stop this problem through Trap, Neuter, Release (TNR) programs, designed and WORKING to reduce the feral/stray populations country-wide. But no. You further victimize another victim. He is the butt of a joke, a sad joke. I pray for that poor kitty, that he should know some peace some day, that he won't have to lash out at children who probably provoked him. I pray for your children, that they should become wiser than their father, and try to care about a problem as opposed to use it for a laugh at the victim's expense.
I also zipped off a letter to the paper’s Editor:
I am a Senior Vice President of and Senior Equity Analyst at Gilford Securities, a brokerage firm based in mid-town Manhattan. I survived September 11, 2001. Many of my friends and hundreds of my customers and business associates - people I knew personally - did not. That Mr. Horsley named this innocent victim of society's ignorance after a madman who is terrorizing our nation and has murdered thousands is in extremely poor taste. That the newspaper allowed him to print it is unconscionable.
Naming this victim of society's ignorance "Osama" cheapens the deaths of other innocents who suffered Osama bin Laden's handiwork. For Mr. Horsely to compare the fate of his neighborhood due to their ignorance of the problems of abandoned and feral cats to the victims of Osama bin Laden is unthinkable. Shame on him, and shame on you for printing it.
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Well – I was so moved by the whole thing that I felt compelled to do something about it. The first thing that had to happen was to get rid of that horrible name! Using the letters in the name the journalist ascribed to him, we easily came up with an alternative, “Samoa.” After a rescuer was unable to contact her Texas connections, Gary and I took action. We looked up Vets in the Amarillo area and started calling. They all referred us to one person: Judi Glidewell, the owner of CritterCamp. We contacted her. She immediately took on the plight of this poor cat. She was able to get in touch with the journalist who wrote the article, and eventually they trapped Samoa. So many people from around the country became involved in this story, and the Internet enabled all of us to participate in his rescue.
To me it was the epitome of a rescue-coordination effort. A network of caring people from around the country – from around the world, in fact - came together to save Samoa from a terrible fate at the hands of people uneducated as to the plight of stray and feral cats; of people who assume no responsibility for a mess created by people, of which these poor creatures die daily. By the thousands. They die of disease and starvation. They die because they are poisoned. They die because they are euthanized by animal control. But they did not create the problem, people did. Why should these poor souls suffer when they’ve done nothing wrong?
They don’t need to. But it takes education. Thus, www.SaveSamoa.org and www.StrayPetAdvocacy.org were born. This site is dedicated to the rescuers and the rescued. It is our hope that these stories will inspire anyone who was a cat turn up in their yard and gets on-line to seek answers. It is our hope that these stories will help all of us learn about rescuing, and those rescued.
Our sister site, www.StrayPetAdvocacy.org is dedicated to education, legislation and research. We hope to reach those who want to change animal control policy. Our goal is to provide access to solid research on the economic and humane benefits of programs that do not require euthanization. To provide access to solid research on the economic and humane benefits of enacting and financing low-cost spay/neuter programs. Our goal is to help change the fate of stray and feral cats everywhere. There is a solution to cat overpopulation, but the first and foremost challenge is one of education. I hope these sites will help us meet that challenge. These sites are dedicated to the forgotten or abused ones who live in misery and fear. Let’s save ALL the Samoas, and prevent the unwanted ones. There aren’t enough homes for them all.
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