"When the pandemic hit, I was working from home more often," Dana Heis, a Brooklyn-based cat rescuer, recounts. "And I looked out my window and I saw a pregnant cat out there, and I just wondered what I was supposed to do about that."
That first sighting led to a 'snowball effect' for Heis; after learning how to properly trap and rescue cats, she found herself more frequently assisting in cat rescue operations in and beyond Brooklyn.
Lizzie Falcone, another Brooklyn-based cat rescuer who now regularly works in tandem with Heis, recounts a similar foray into the world of cat rescue.
"I was at home more, and I saw this one cat who was emaciated. Helping that one cat was how I fell into cat rescue."
Though both women's cat rescue journey began with a single cat, they quickly came to understand that the cat crisis within New York City was far more expansive than it appeared on the surface.
"You see one cat, there's actually forty more that you're not seeing," Heis explains. "The majority of cats born outside will not live past one year of age. So to see kittens outside means that you're looking at suffering."
Looking at the sheer scale of the cat crisis, Falcone believes that "a lack of resources from every direction is how we become entrenched in large societal problems."
More specifically, Falcone looks to the lack of fiscal support available through city resources to care for cats, whether that support is for pet owners struggling financially or rescuers caring for feral street cats that can't be brought indoors.
The consequence, Falcone believes, is that formerly indoor cats are put onto the street when their owners can no longer care for them and visibly ill 'community cats' are left to suffer alone through their ailments.
"If we had more resources, people wouldn't face what I faced," Falcone explains.
"But the third cat I ever trapped was suffering from very severe dental disease," she says of the cat she affectionately named Couscous. "He was essentially going to starve to death."
"Being faced with a fifteen-hundred-dollar surgery bill stopped me in my tracks."
Unsure of how to afford such a steep medical bill, Falcone reached out to the Brooklyn cat rescue community for advice. The resounding verdict was that to pay for Couscous' veterinary expenses, Lizzie would have to go viral online and elicit donations from strangers far and wide.
"That is how I found myself with a cat rescue Instagram," Falcone explains.
Soon enough, Falcone's page gained traction amongst a rapidly-growing audience of followers.
"We got him his dental surgery," Falcone recalls of Couscous. "He lived in my home for about six months; by month three, he was so friendly."
Ultimately, Couscous' underlying health issues were found to be much more severe than initially suspected, including late-stage, irreversible kidney disease.
"Eventually, it was very clear that he was fading," Falcone recalls. "But I love that he got six months inside being loved."
This belief is a hallmark of Falcone and Heis' rescue philosophy; the lives of the cats in their care - no matter how brief - are dignified, safe and filled with love.
A soft place to land like the one afforded to Couscous, however, is still a rarity for most street cats.
"There's a quote I read once that was like: 'Just because a death is natural does not mean it's humane,'" Falcone says. "So many cats in New York City are suffering really inhumane deaths."
"The heaviness of rescue, it's unlike anything I've ever done," Falcone says.
"But you're just trying to remember that every act of kindness we can do for them is an act of kindness they might not have had otherwise. In the most challenging of cases, that is what I try to re-center and remember."
For Firn, one of Falcone and Heis' most complex medical cases to-date, this act of kindness saved his life after a broken pelvis left him afraid, in pain and fending for himself on the street.
Through their dedicated social media followings, more than $50,000 was raised from a pool of over eighteen-hundred donors to cover Firn's extensive medical costs.
"We couldn't have gotten Firn the care that he needed without the amount of online support that he got," Falcone says.
"It's such an honor to have people paying attention and caring. It's amazing; it's what keeps me coming back to it."
With each cat rescued off the streets, Falcone and Heis hope not only to enact change within their communities, but to inspire their supporters to do the same, whether that be through becoming TNR-certified and trapping cats themselves, supporting a cat's medical care through a small donation, or simply raising awareness via social media.
"People will go, 'Well, I'm not a rescuer,'" Falcone says, "and I'm like, 'You can be!' Anyone can be: you can just help a single cat, and that's one cat who's had their life changed."
"If a lot of people do a little, we all do a lot."
Click to learn more about Lizzie and Dana.
Want to get involved? Click here for more information and resources.