A Mississippi man issued an ultimatum to get rid of more than a hundred cats; Mobile nonprofit to the rescue

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – Michael Woods said he never intended to have so many cats. He said his now ex-wife got the first one around 2018. And then they took a few more to their home near Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Woods added that his wife took in more strays during a time when he was away from home caring for his sick mother.

When he got home, he said, he discovered that many of the cats were pregnant.

“It’s a combination of a lot of things that got us to where we are today,” he told FOX10 News.

But now those cats have to go. Woods said he was given an ultimatum this week that he would be deported unless he got rid of them within 48 hours. He said he could negotiate an extension until Monday.

Still, finding homes for about 115 cats — Woods says he hasn’t actually counted them — has been a difficult prospect. Then Allyson Clements came to the rescue. She said she has been involved with cat rescues in Mobile for about 14 years and founded the Mobile Cat Society in 2020. She said she has seen the cats, who appear healthy and well-fed.

“He takes good care of them, and he has separated them all into separate rooms so they don’t reproduce and overpopulate, which is incredibly smart,” she said.

Clements said she will take several volunteers and a large van Saturday to pick up the cats, a process she estimated could take up to four hours.

Woods said he is grateful to Clements and other animal rescue groups who are working to find homes for the cats.

“It’s amazing,” he said. “I don’t even know how to put it into words because I didn’t even know something like that would be possible. You know, they all really made it happen – every single one of them.”

Woods said that since his ordeal hit social media, he has been accused of trying to commit some kind of scam — a ridiculous accusation, he said, since he has never asked for anything other than good homes for his pets.

Clements said once she picks up the cats, volunteers will make sure they are vaccinated, dewormed and treated for fleas.

Afterward, she said, she plans to drop off 30 of the cats at a rescue organization in Montgomery. Other groups in Mobile and Foley have committed to including about 20 others. That leaves 65 cats that will stay in foster homes until Clements can find a permanent home.

She said she had taken in large groups of cats before, but never this many.

“We’re going to address as many as we can, but we definitely need help,” she said. “We are a very small organization, so 115 cats is a bull’s eye.”

Soon, Woods’ cats will be gone—most of them, anyway. He said he plans to keep at least a gold-and-black feline he named Miracle. He said he initially thought the cat was dead and then bottle-fed it back to health with great difficulty.

“There’s one or two that I couldn’t let go of,” he said. “I should probably move them, move them to my dad’s house, actually those two. But they are, for lack of better words, mine, you would say.’