Exotic Feline Rescue Center asking hunters for help with food

CENTER POINT, Ind. (WTHI) – It’s hunting season, and a local rescue center is in need of help from hunters.

With more than 200 mouths to feed, “Sometimes we’re cut a little short,” said Joe Taft, Founder of the Exotic Feline Rescue Center in Center Point, Indiana.

Even in desperate times, Taft is in charge of providing those meals.

“I worry about everything all the time,” Taft said.

Like their size, the cats have a rather large appetite.

“They start feeding at 8:30 in the morning and they’re not done until anywhere between 4 and 6:00 at night,” Taft noted.

Feeding time requires between 3,000-4,000 pounds of meat every single day, and that number continues to rise. The rescue recently added ten new cats.

“We’ve had a busy couple of weeks. We rescued five cats from Greensburg, Indiana and then turned around and got a call from New York,” Taft said. “What we often find with these cats that are abused is they are not fed properly. When we bring them back here they’re hungry.”

Picking up the livestock is a service they offer free of charge for the farmer, but for the rescue center the process is both expensive and labor intensive.

“So if deer hunters have extra deer or big scraps, we’re certainly always glad to add that into the cats’ diet,” said Taft, who also said the animals’ appetites go up as the temperatures plummet.

“Everybody this time of year is putting on their winter fat,” he said.

Without government funding they continue to rely heavily on community support.

“The support sometimes means as much as the actual meat but both of them are invaluable to us,” said Taft.

The rescue is also in need of straw for the winter.

For contact information, and hours of operation at the Exotic Feline Rescue Center, click here.