Sick Cats Came To Tiger Ranch From Several States

There was public outcry all across the country after a raid at the Tiger Ranch cat sanctuary in March.

That was when investigators found more than 700 cats, many sick and dying, on the 27-acre facility in Tarentum.

So where did all of those cats come from?

An investigation by Target 11's Karen Welles found huge intricate networks of animal rescuers all over the country were involved in getting cats to Tiger Ranch.

Thousands of the cats from New York, New Jersey and Atlanta, Ga., ended up at Tiger Ranch.

Welles traveled to Atlanta as part of her investigation.

She talked to animal rescuer Pat Dasenbrock.

She told Welles, "We felt that we were sending our cats to a safe haven."

Tiger Ranch, a no-kill cat sanctuary near Tarentum, was raided after undercover video showed sick, dead and dying cats.

Many were so sick they had to be euthanized after the raid.

Dasenbrock sent cats to Tiger Ranch by the van load expecting them to be adopted out.

She told Welles, "We worry about them now because we don't think with what's coming out in the news that maybe they all didn't get adopted out so there's been kind of a teeter totter of emotions here in Atlanta wondering what happened to all of the cats that we did send up to Tiger Ranch."

In fact, Tiger Ranch's own records show it took in nearly 6,500 cats in 2007, but adopted out only 14.

Atlanta is overrun with cats, and warm weather means more breeding cycles and more and more kittens.

And no kill cat shelters are filled to capacity.

Shannon Crafton is the executive director of Good Mews, an Atlanta area cat shelter. Crafton said, "One female unsprayed cat, throughout her entire family in a 10-year period could have actually millions of family members just from that one cat, so it's a hard problem to get a hold of. There just isn't space there, aren't enough good homes, it's really heartbreaking." So most end up at animal control.

Nearly 100,000 dogs and cats are put to sleep in Atlanta each year.

Many have died in the nearly two dozen gas chambers in use.

Animal activists say that form of euthanasia is inhumane, so they turned to Tiger Ranch and owner Lin Marie Bruno.

Dasenbrock said, "We assumed that our animals, our cats were going up and being adopted out on the weekends to homes because we had heard there was a shortage of animals to be adopted up there. We sent beautiful cats up there, very adoptable, very healthy cats up there."

Dasenbrock also said Bruno never turn cats away. "She never said well I can't take any more, so we kept continuing rescuing them here because they would've been just euthanized or gassed here in Georgia," she said.

Welles tried to find out what happened to the Atlanta cats, but Bruno's attorney said he and his client can't say because prosecutors have seized Tiger Ranch's records.

Bruno will stand trial on more than 500 counts of animal cruelty.