Yes, Moomoo and Booboo, the cats from the San Juan Basin Health Department were saved and relocated, no thanks to Liane Jollon and her administration team: The exterminators were called before any direction for staff to stop feeding or housing Moomoo and Booboo was given.
An exterminator set baited traps, and the cats were terrified and went into hiding. We were told we could not water or feed the cats after the exterminator was called. We contacted Padgie Kimmick to assist with saving the cats.
It took three long days and evenings to finally get the cats sedated – and a high-pressure water hose to shoot them out of their culvert hiding place into trapping nets.
Please remember these cats trusted us. One cat was nearly choked to death and bleeding; it took all of us to hold him down and cut the net from his neck. He had difficulty breathing for several days. It was horrible. Padgie said it was one the most difficult trappings in her long history.
We relocated them to a safe place at considerable financial and emotional cost – with final realization that we could no longer work for this agency.
For Jollon to try and represent this as a clean-cut sterile solution to a skunk problem (Letters, Herald, Jan. 18) says it all about her style and methods and why so many caring people have left SJBHD.
If it was never about the cats, it is still about a lack of kindness, honesty and mutual respect for co-workers and animals.
It is also a fact that there is no skunk rabies on the Western Slope in Colorado. Our SJBHD epidemiologist would have been the first person to intervene for the safety of all if skunk rabies were the real concern.
Rita Fowler
Delta
