PHOTOS: A tiny house village for feral cats in Seattle

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long Interstate 5, south of downtown Seattle, intricate tunnels weave their way through brush and blackberry bushes. The tunnels are established by feral cats — living and breeding in colonies along the greenbelt.

On a recent Friday afternoon in March, volunteer Morgan Sandys hiked up a wooded trail carrying both wet and dry cat food in a large yellow pack on her back. She’s forged a bond with two separate nearby colonies — coming once or twice a week to feed and water them, as well as socialize them to humans.

“I had no idea there were just cats out in the world breeding in bushes,” Sandys said.

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She’s always loved animals and began volunteering with various cat rescues as a teenager. She says there’s something special about winning the trust of a feral cat. It's something that she wouldn’t have been able to achieve had she not been feeding them.

“It feels good to get a familiarity with these animals that, as you can see, won’t get close to people.”

Now, she volunteers with Alley Cat Project, a non-profit that specializes in TNR: trap, neuter, return. Their goal is to reduce overpopulation in feral cat colonies.

Sandys says the work is intrinsically rewarding — she’s seen what can happen when colonies spiral out of control and the cats are fighting for resources.

Deborah Sorensen started Alley Cat Project in 2010 after years of volunteering with the Seattle Animal Shelter. She realized during her time volunteering that a high percentage of the animals euthanized were feral cats. There are approximately 70 million feral cats in the United States, according to the Seattle Humane Society.

“So, we organized and became a non-profit,” Sorensen said. “Somebody has to do it.”

“TNR works,” she said. “We’ve seen the decline.”

According to Sorensen, the bump in the road for feral cats here has been connected to the homelessness crisis.

“That caused the number of feral colonies to sharply increase overall, but in very specific areas.”

Those areas are what they call "hot spots."

“In the last seven or eight years, I have to say, the Georgetown and SoDo areas where there are a lot of large encampments, those encampments have produced huge numbers,” Sorensen said.

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For a period, Sandys was unhoused.

“I was homeless here in SoDo and I camped out in an RV just two blocks from here,” she said, at one of the colonies she cares for. “That’s part of how I knew about this site.”

Her day job is in homeless outreach — connecting people with the resources and services that they need to get shelter.

“There’s a lot of synergy between the two,” she said.

In addition to caring for the colonies, Sandys also fosters pets at her home in West Seattle.

“I know how hard it was when I was homeless trying to take care of my animals,” she said.

She’s now fostering a kitten for a woman who recently entered transitional housing and couldn’t bring her pet with her.

“It makes me feel good that she’s going to be able to get her cat back,” she said. “And that she didn’t have to choose between keeping her cat and getting stable shelter.”

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t one of the colonies under an I-5 overpass, there are tiny, cat-sized houses lined up near a feeder. The feeder is stocked weekly by Sandys, with a barrier to keep the raccoons out.

“I called this place 'the kitten factory' because it just cranked them out,” she said.

At this specific colony, volunteers have trapped, neutered and either returned or found homes for over 75 feral cats in recent years. Now, the colony has about a dozen cats left, and they’re all fixed.

“They’re not going to be repopulating,” Sorensen said. “Whereas they would have repopulated exponentially here into infinity probably because there’s so much cover and blackberry bushes for them to breed and have kittens in.”

“This might be the first summer with no kittens here,” Sandys added. “And it makes me really proud to say that.”

“It’s not exponential exactly because a high percentage of the kittens born out there are going to die,” Sorensen clarified.

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The kittens don’t have a great chance even if they do survive past the weaning process. But the older feral cats are very resourceful, Sorensen said.

“They know how to survive. Not that we shouldn’t do all we can to help them, but they do come up with the most amazing solutions. I’ve found through experience that they find their way in the world. Like most wildlife, they will find a way to survive.”

When asked if there was one thing that Sandys wanted the public to know, she mentioned the sheer number of kittens born outdoors that she’s seen die.

“God damnit, spay and neuter your pets,” she said.

Correction 4/5/2024: An earlier version of this story misstated where Deborah Sorensen volunteered. It was the Seattle Animal Shelter, not the Seattle Humane Society.