Space Coast Feline Network

Space Coast Feline Network (SCFN) was founded in the mid-1990s to care for the feral cats at Kennedy Space Center. Previous to that time, KSC's Roads and Grounds personnel would periodically trap ferals in the inhabited/work areas of the Center and transport them offsite to a county shelter where they would be euthanized.

As is true in many operations such as this, not all of the cats were trapped so the remaining ones would breed to fill the space left by the ones that had been killed. In addition, feral cats from other areas of the Center would move into the inhabited areas since that is where the food is located. The problem would resurface every couple of years and more cats would be killed.

Employees who wanted to see a more humane solution asked to be given the responsibility to manage the feral program, including trapping the cats, taking them offsite to have them spayed/neutered, given rabies vaccinations, and then returned to KSC where they would be cared for.

NASA management gave approval for this program and also gave the volunteers an abandoned building on the Center to keep the cats in. The building has no electrical power or running water so volunteers must deliver water by hand to the site and do all work during daylight hours. It is not the best situation for the few volunteers or the cats. In 1997, new KSC management asked that the cats be removed from the Center instead. They did not give a time limit on when it had to be done, just that progress needed to be made to do so. That is when SCFN incorporated as a not-for-profit organization in the State of Florida and obtained its IRS 501(c)(3) status as a charitable organization. The club also began efforts to raise money to purchase property near KSC on which the cats could be relocated. When SCFN received a grant for $10,000 from the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the search for property began in earnest.

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