Curly was rescued from NYC Animal Care & Control where she was scheduled to be killed. Empty Cages Collective stepped in to save her life when Curly entered the shelter system with no mother and only a few days old: a virtual death sentence at NYC ACC.

After several weeks of bottle feeding, kitten poop cleaning and TLC, Curly was ready to go home! Her new guardian is already in love! Thanks for being a hero for Curly, Dana!

Have a great life, Curly! Thanks for reminding us of the resilience of little lives like yours and why we keep trying to rescue animals from places like NYC ACC.

Coffee the Super Puppy Needs Your Help!

Empty Cages & Coffee Need Your Help! Please Click Here!

Please watch the video link above!
Empty Cages Collective (www.emptycagescollective.org) received a phone call today (Wed., May 4, 2011) from an employee from a Family Dollar store in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The employee informed us that the store had a bird that was stuck in one of the businesses glue traps and he was encouraged to throw the bird and glue trap in the garbage. The Family Dollar employee was unable to bring the bird to ECC to receive help.

Thankfully, an ECC volunteer was available and went to retrieve the bird and bring him back to our shelter space for assistance. Once we got the bird, we realized the bird had been suffering and severely stuck for hours. Luckily, ECC volunteers were able to delicately remove the house sparrow from the sticky mess without injuring his limbs (a difficult task!). This video was taken moments before we successfully removed the bird from the glue trap. The little guy is expected to make a full recovery and will be released back into the “wilds” of Brooklyn once he is fully recovered.

Unfortunately, most animals who are caught in glue traps aren’t so lucky. Animals caught in glue traps (from rats, mice, to birds, snakes, bats and other creatures) languish for hours and days until they die of dehydration, starvation, injuries (animals often break their limbs in a desperate attempt to escape) and asphyxiation (when the animal’s noses and mouths become stuck in the adhesive material in the glue trap). No animal–deemed pest or otherwise–deserves to be so cruelly treated and killed. Companies like Dollar General & Rite Aid have agreed to stop selling glue traps, while other companies like JP Morgan Chase & Co., American Eagle Outfitters and Safeway have agreed to stop utilizing these cruel devices.

Please help us prevent this cruelty from happening to other animals: 1) Please send a letter/make a phone call to this Family Dollar store (903 Knickerbocker Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11207-1317, (718) 366-6843) demanding that they cease using *and* selling glue traps at this location. 2.) Leave this Family Dollar store a bad yelp review (http://www.yelp.com/biz/family-dollar-store-brooklyn-6) to show that animal abuse is bad for business, and most importantly 3) write to Family Dollar’s Executive Offices (P.O. Box 1017, Charlotte, NC 28201-1017, PHONE: 704-847-6961, EMAIL: press@familydollar.com, URL: http://corporate.familydollar.com/pages/contactus.aspx) and request a formal policy that prevents the sale or utilization of cruel glue traps in any of their stores! Please send us any responses you receive to info@emptycagescollective.org