SAUGERTIES — A Saugerties woman who has dedicated her career to the well-being of farm animals has established a premier animal sanctuary in the town. Over the course of the last two decades Kathy Stevens has saved more than 5,000 farm animals through direct rescue at the Catskill Animal Sanctuary.
Stevens left the education field to open the sanctuary driven by an abiding passion for animals.
“They’re in my DNA,” she said of the sanctuary’s animals. “I grew up on a farm and I’ve known since I came out of the womb practically that there’s more to them than most people have the opportunity to understand. Also because it was a way of combining my two greatest passions, since my background was in teaching. Forming a sanctuary was a way of combining my love for animals with my love for teaching and farming.”
Stevens founded the nonprofit sanctuary in 2001, and the site has expanded to its current 150-acre form. The sanctuary currently houses 11 different animal species, including pigs, cows and chickens.
“As the need to have more animals increased and as we were financially able, we have actually bought over the years eight pieces of property that are all contiguous,” Stevens said Monday. “We bought 80 acres, then 11 more, then 21 acres. So we did it like that. We started out with 80 and we’ve doubled our property over the years.”
The animal sanctuary is open to the public for weekend tours, but visits from classes of local schoolchildren had to be halted when the pandemic began in the spring in 2020. Stevens said the sanctuary is eager to have schoolkids back on the grounds of the Saugerties sanctuary.
“We actively work virtually with kids, but we hope to be able to resume on-site programming again, because there’s nothing like it.”
Stevens said the sanctuary is working on a pilot program that will help people in need care for animals in the recipients’ own homes.
“You can’t rescue your way out of this problem,” she said. “There will always be exponentially more animals than can be saved. We just went to a very elderly gentleman who was desperate for help with his 16 goats. We treated them for parasites and we trimmed their hooves and did blood work. We’ll be piloting that this year, as well as a program to hold people’s hands who want to become vegan as a way of being compassionate towards the animals and the environment and just need some support. So we’re excited to launch those.”
Stevens said that over the last 21 years running the animal sanctuary that she regularly sees epiphanies from visitors who fall in love when they meet the farms’ animals.
“It happens all of the time,” she said. “We don’t live in a world that allows people to connect deeply with food animals in the way we’re able to connect with cats and dogs. When people come on to the grounds of the sanctuary and a pig runs to us when we call her name or a cow walks up and licks you on the face over and over, those moments invite people to understand that cows are emotional and chickens are individuals. The animals force people to see that there is no meaningful difference between our beloved companion animals and the animals we put on our plates.”
Stevens is a strong advocate for people to adopt veganism to spare farm animals and help the environment.
“Unless and until we make a dramatic shift, we’re on a collision course,” she said. “The environment is telling us every way she can that we have to change our behavior. Since our consumption has become a leading cause of almost every environmental challenge we face, particularly climate change, then we’re essentially on a suicide mission. So we try to lead with love and say we’re not only doing this for the animals, but for the future of our children, our grandchildren and the planet.”