Kathy is a native New Jerseyan and spent her childhood on her family’s farm in Sussex county, where she lived with animals of all kinds. Upon graduating from Douglass College with degrees in psychology and philosophy, she found herself once again in the company of animals: a colony of feral cats in her first apartment complex. In pre-internet days, she researched TNR on her own and then trapped, sterilized, and vaccinated every cat in the colony. Most importantly, she committed to being their caretaker until the last cat passed away and completed a successful TNR project.
Kathy learned early on that colony caretaking is very difficult work with no days off; TNR only works when every cat is fixed. She wanted to share the methods, tricks, and connections she made with others in the state so that they too could do more than just feed and watch cats breed more to suffer outside. Whiskers Rescue was born as a part time effort as she worked full time to pay her bills during the day. 
Over the years, she assisted and performed TNR for residents, including fosters and adoptions for any friendly cats and kittens. It became apparent that unless people feeding cats were 100% invested in the responsibilities of trapping and caretaking, TNR failed. An annual “trapping service” just meant more cats the next year in the same location. At the same time, animal control in towns became less and less involved with feral cats and enforcement of proper caretaking.
Running Whiskers is now a full-time job for Kathy as she teaches residents how to be responsible caretakers and navigates the municipal policies that vary throughout the state for treatment of outdoors cats, feeding, impoundment, and TNR. She piloted the 50 Feral Fix in late 2022 when it became clear that many feeders could not afford to pay even reduced TNR surgery rates. Since its inception, the 50 Feral Fix has provided over $158k in free spay/neuter alone to residents in need. She also educates and advocates for residents who are unfamiliar with their towns’ programs, ordinances, and state laws. Kathy’s latest initiative is reform of New Jersey’s treatment of animal control, striving for a system similar to New York City that places animal control and sheltering under the purview of Health.
How many cats has Kathy trapped? It’s safe to say tens of thousands. But the number she cares about is of the cats struggling to survive outside, which is in the millions. She’d like that to be zero.