Jesse McConaha and Ashton Effertz were just about to finish a run to Tacoma's Owen Beach on Sunday morning, when their friend pointed out a cat in the water, paddling next to a sailboat anchored a hundred or more feet offshore.
Without hesitation, the pair, both age 26, stripped and jumped into Puget Sound to save it.
The cat had been one of 60 black, white and gray juveniles living in squalor on the abandoned boat.
Three days earlier, a concerned community member had reported the horde of felines aboard the boat off Point Ruston. Police and animal control officers found overflowed litter boxes, with no food or water in sight. After getting a warrant, they seized about 30 cats Friday and left behind food, water and traps, with plans to later pick up what they estimated to be another dozen stressed-out cats.
On Sunday, one of the cats jumped overboard. McConaha and Effertz swam to it. Effertz plucked the black-and-white cat from the water.
“Handoff!” Effertz shouted, and McConaha took the cat, rolling over so the cat could lie on his stomach, while he did the backstroke. The cat, wide-eyed and weak, dug its claws into his chest and scraped him with its back feet until McConaha again shouted “Handoff!” The two passed the cat back and forth twice before McConaha finally brought it to shore, where about a dozen people clapped and cheered.
Bloodied with scratches, McConaha handed the cat to a bystander who said they could transport it to a veterinarian and later the Humane Society.
The sailboat resident, Derek Hieb, said he works “hand to mouth” as a rigger. He lived on the 40-foot boat until a couple days before police seized it. Making just enough money to pay for boat insurance, cat food and popcorn, the 62-year-old said his cat population boomed because he couldn’t afford to neuter and spay them.
A bite from one of the cats caused Hieb to be away, he said. His hand swelled to the point that he couldn’t row out to the sailboat, so he took a couple of days to get antibiotics and let his hand heal, but by then, police had responded to the welfare check for cats in distress. He’s been living in his car. Hieb didn’t mean to abandon the cats, he said, but “it is what it is — it’s all my fault.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, a friend gave Hieb a cat named Missy who gave birth to a litter. He later got her spayed, then two of her kittens, but he couldn't afford more than that, he said. After six years, he had dozens of cats living with him.
“It was a lot of scratches,” he said.
The Humane Society in Tacoma offers assistance with spay and neuter services for those with low incomes, as does Washington Health Outreach, but both are not currently accepting applications.
The sailboat was parked and registered legally, and it wasn’t taking on any water. But like a car on a public street, it can’t be parked too long, Tacoma police spokesperson Shelbie Boyd said. Police posted on Thursday that the owner had seven days to move it. But when officers returned to the boat Monday, they found a stowaway.
Camille Sutherland, a private cat trapper, had actually boarded the boat over the weekend, hoping to save more of the cats that she guessed, correctly, were still stranded, after word spread of the police’s 30-cat pickup.
The Seattleite, 36, has been trapping cats for five years, responding to reports of feral cats and litters without obvious homes, she said. She’s trapped more than 500 cats. After an initial trapping, she said, you usually find 15% to 20% more cats.
Sutherland headed south, loaded up a paddleboard with 15 pounds of cat food, 30 water bottles, seven carriers and two traps. She floated up to the sailboat. Conditions were “horrifying,” she said: Cat feces 2 inches deep on the floor, empty feeding bowls and few personal possessions. Sutherland placed traps and trail cameras on board to monitor the cats before rescuing one with one eye that jumped into the water at night.
She took it home and returned Monday — when police told her to stand down, that they had it under control, and that the boat was private property. She returned the one-eyed cat to them and watched from the shore.
After police and animal control left, wrapping the boat in yellow police tape, Sutherland climbed aboard again with help from another boater and removed another two cats, she said.
“Private property means nothing to me,” Sutherland said. “It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. If they’re not home, I will trespass all day every day if a cat is in danger, confined without food or water.”
Between the police, animal control, Sutherland, McConaha and Effertz, 59 of the cats were removed and taken to the Humane Society by Tuesday.
Sutherland said a 60th cat was taken off the boat Wednesday afternoon.
The Humane Society could not be reached immediately, but it said in a Facebook post that all of the cats got exams, vaccines and parasite preventatives, and more than 20 have been taken into “wonderful foster homes where they can receive care and decompress.”
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