Snow damages Wildcat Sanctuary

A no-kill sanctuary for domestic and wild cats in Sandstone is working to repair several cages after last week's snowstorm left up to $100,000 in damage.

Wildcat Sanctuary is a no-kill cat rescue organization that houses over 100 cats, including big cats that were once owned illegally.

"We have five enclosures that all have to be built from the ground up and then we have about nine that are going through repair right now," said Tammy Thies, the Wildcat Sanctuary's executive director. "We don't think we're going to see snow like that for a very long time in Minnesota but we're going to be prepared."

The snow was so wet and heavy that it piled on top of the cages, causing them to cave in, rather than falling through holes in cages, as it normally does, she added.

"Because of safety regulations we didn't want to go and have a human have a cage fall on it so we were trying to do protocol from outside the enclosures, and we just couldn't keep up," Thies said.

Twenty domestic and hybrid cats needed to be placed in a temporary cage indoors, but the sanctuary's larger cats were not affected by the storm. She said none of the cats escaped or were injured. The larger cats at the sanctuary were unaffected.

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