Animal Welfare still rescuing cats after bizarre bus encounter

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A chaotic two days resulted in more than 100 cats being rescued from a bus, a suspect arrested, and a fire breaking out in a garage. Days later, there are still cats on the property.

“Oh my gosh, there’s a lot of cats. There’s a lot of cats in there,” an Albuquerque Police officer said.

A lot might be an understatement. Two days later, Animal Welfare still doesn’t have a concrete number of how many cats were saved in Southeast Albuquerque. That’s how many they’re currently dealing with.

“Oh my God! Dude I’ve never seen anything like this in my life,” an APD officer said.

“It was in this rickety old bus with a wooden top on it,” neighbor Tim Thorpe said. “I’ve never seen that many cats in one place before, so I called 311… I thought it was odd, but I’ve seen a lot of odd things since I moved to Albuquerque.”

APD said officers first went out to the area Oct. 27 as they responded to a suspicious vehicle blocking Ross Avenue and Cornell Drive SE. There they found and arrested Christopher Hart, who they said had four warrants out for his arrest.

The next day, officers were back to check on the bus, which was associated with Hart. Around the same time they noticed all of the cats, the fire broke out.

“All of a sudden, the house, or what looked like the house, blew up. A big black plume of smoke was in the air,” Thorpe said.

Albuquerque Fire Rescue put out the fire as APD and animal control officers saved the cats.

“All of the cats are actually out of the bus and are at our West Side shelter now, undergoing treatment. A lot of the cats are extremely malnourished. A lot of the cats had respiratory issues and eye issues,” Animal Welfare Public Information Officer Jeremy Aslaksen said.

At least one of the cats in the bus was dead, and at least four are so young they need care around the clock. Aslaksen says the respiratory issues likely stem from the fact that the cats were living in filth.

“They need to be bottle fed and they need to be really watched until they reach a certain weight. They can eat dry food and things like that. So it’s going to be a process,” Aslaksen said.

There are so many cats, vet teams from the Eastside Shelter are also assisting. Some of the cats might eventually be moved there. But while the cats in the bus were taken care of, Aslaksen said the work is just beginning.

“They are still finding cats,” he said. “It’s gonna be a little while, I think, until we hear some more about this and that the cats are healthy enough to move forward with the rest of their lives.”

Neighbors believe there are still about 40 cats on the property. Just looking around at them, you can see many are malnourished, with bones visible under their fur. Some have cuts and scratches too.

Aslaksen said Animal Welfare is planning on coming back out to get the rest of the cats. He added while he’s never seen anything like this, these situations point to the importance of spaying and neutering your pets.

“It points to the reasons why we do have things like spay and neuter programs, and keeping street cats and feral cats spayed and neutered, so we don’t have these population increases like this of people that that aren’t taking care of them properly or can’t take care of them.”

Because many of the cats are sick, it’ll be a while before the community can adopt them. Right now, Animal Welfare doesn’t know who owns the cats but is investigating.

It’s also unclear if Hart is associated with the home or the fire. AFR is investigating the cause of the fire as APD works on the investigation into Hart. Code Enforcement secured the home.

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