I don’t understand how a hotel chain that claims to love pets can turn around and callously set up an extermination program for the handful of feral cats living on its property. For years the Loews Portofino Bay Hotel and Loews Royal Pacific Resort in Orlando, FL had a model TNR program, run by former-bellman George Ricci and several caring Loews employees. There were even feeding stations built that imitated the hotel’s architecture. Then for no apparent reason, the corporate staff decided that the cats posed a concern “due to the persistent threat of injury and disease,” and have hired a wildlife control service to trap the cats and “relocate” them to the county animal services center where as ferals, they will immediately be killed.
“Loews loves pets?” More like “Loews loves hypocrisy and kills cats.”
Nobody seems to know why these hotels suddenly turned around and changed from feline friendly to out-and-out hostile (they have told employees they will be fired if discovered feeding the cats). There have been no known instances of negative guest encounters with the cats. In fact, most seemed charmed by the feeding stations. The cats themselves are shy, keep their distance from people and do not mingle with the guests at all. Scientific studies have “found virtually no risk to humans from feral cats and diseases associated with cats.”
How many cats are swarming the Loews properties? Numbers vary, but it is somewhere between 16 and 24 cats, all of whom have been neutered, dewormed and vaccinated. That’s it! The most recent animal problem reported at one of the hotels was when one guest’s dog killed a dog belonging to another guest in January. No cats involved.
A number of well-respected groups including Alley Cat Allies reached out to Loews in an attempt to help them with the cats and educate them on the facts, but they were ignored. Loews made its decision based on ignorance, cruelty, and unwillingness to listen to the truth.
How can you help these cats? Even if you do not live in Orlando, there are many ways:
- Pledge to never stay at a Loews hotel ever again.
- Discourage anyone you know from staying at Loews, and tell any professional groups you belong to that you do not want their conferences held at Loews hotels.
- Let Loews know you are not staying there anymore. The Loews Portofino Bay Hotel and Loews Royal Pacific Resort have a Facebook page, and they do not allow you to post on their wall, but there are ways to still get your point across. You can write a “recommendation” on their page and tell them what you think. You can also link to them in a post you write for your own Wall (“like” the hotel’s page — try not to gag — and then type “@Loews Royal Pacific” in your Wall post and you should get the option to link to them from your post). You can also comment on any of their own posts on their page, as you might see many other cat lovers have already done.
- Also, if you are on Facebook, keep up on what is going on with the cats by “liking” the Save Loews Cats page.
- Educate yourself on feral cats so that you can give a good argument if anything similar happens in your town. Alley Cat Allies has loads of resources for you. They also have a form where you can write to the Loews management and tell them off.
You know, most of us kitties are just one or two humans away from being in the same sort of danger the Loews cats are. Don’t let this inhumane decision stand!
We are very sad Loews decided on this course of action. We will be sure to never stay at Loews hotels.
Excellent blog. We will never stay with them!
Corporate Beins are obviously VERY stoopid! We would scratch them very hard.
What Loews is doing makes us very MAD! We will do what we can to let them know how we feel.
We don’t have those hotels here so we can’t boycott them but we are making a copy of one and clawing it to death.
Luv Hannah and Lucy xx xx
WE will also do as much as we can to boycott this darn place. It makes Mom cry to hear about what is going to happen to those cats. It is just horrible. We will try to do more. We did go send that email. Thanks Sparkle for writing about this.
What a shame. I think cats and their owners should stage a demonstration outside the hotel!
You got it! NO Lowe’s for my human. I will scratch her if she even says the name in a kindly manner. There is one in Nashville, TN, and I will ask her tell of their shame every time Nashville is mentioned. She may bore a bunch of other humans, but bad news travels almost as fast as light, or at least as fast I do when I hear the words “treat time.”
mom says she will NEVER stay with them…..it is just stupid.
Dear Sparkle,
it is amazing how peoples can be so ignorant. Thanks for telling us about it and finding all the links to makes it easier for us to show our support!
Kisses
Nellie
Since they are all fixed they would have eventually just died of natural causes in their own time so I don’t know why they are being so obnoxious. My guess is one of their richy rich guests said they would not come back because of the cats….
I have a permanent dislike for Loews. Never ever will any of our humans set paw on any Loews property anywhere!
EXCELLENT! OUTSTANDING! Thank you so much for writing such a well-informed post and for giving us detailed ways we can become involved!
We agree with Mommy! Loew’s HATES cats! We told her to tell her office that their (not insignificant) business conferences should never ever consider a Loew’s property again. They agreed!
All seven of us will nefurr effurr use Cat-Killing Loews.
And we will advise all ours corporate-business-type furriends and associates to nefurr effurr use Cat-Killing Lowes!
CAT KILLING LOWES LEAVE OURS FERAL FURRIENDS ALONE!
Great post, too, Sparkle. Just wish it wasn’t necessary!
Love & Purrs,
KC
They’re on my list of places to NEVER stay. Never ever, ever! PROMISE!
We think this is a horrible policy and I hope that the many cat lovers who live in Florida are able to get their point across. We agree with you all and I doubt we will ever stay at their hotels but well, it would be amazing if we got to Florida and did that anyway!
We read about this a month or so ago when their Facebook page was FLOODED with comments on their insane actions. Loews’ response, on the rare occasion there was one, was just a canned piece of meaningless PR. We didn’t know how it had ended up. So very sad. We’ve got some connections with friends and colleagues that host giant conferences multiple times a year…and believe me, they will never, EVER, be held at one of Loews’ properties.
Thanks for posting this, Sparkle.
…remember that YouTube video that went viral called “United Breaks Guitars?” …that awesome musician that wrote a song about United Airlines breaking his guitar, then produced an amazingly funny video about it? It created a PR nightmare for United. How cool would it be if there was a musician out there that could make a “Loew’s Hates Cats” video! That oughta keep their PR minions busy. ; )
Done. I used love staying there but no more.
There must have been a change at the top of the management…someone who disliked cats. WELL you can bet your bippy we would NEVER stay at this hotel. Anytime we hear about things like this we act with our pocketbooks.
WE feel sooooo bad for those kitties and it probably breaks the hearts of those employees who were taking good care of those ferals.
BOO HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSs on Loews
purrs
>^,,^<
♥Abby♥Boo♥Ping♥Jinx♥Grace♥
Disgusting bunch of people. Of course, all it takes is one cat-hating person who is high enough up.
What is wrong with those people? The cats aren’t bothering anyone. They shouldn’t die because of ignorance or whatever is motivating the ones “relocating” them.
We had hoped this would change and are sad that they didn’t come to their senses. This is just totally stupid and is for absolutely no reason whatsoever so we will never ever stay in a Loew’s hotel – ever.
Thanks Sparkle, this is shocking. What on earth is wrong with people?
have tweeted, shared, “liked” the Save The Cats page…this just sickens me…….hope they are infested with bedbugs, probably are already!
As staunch ACA members, we already wrote to the management over there. Having just received your newsletter, we took the suggested actions herein as well. Thank you for sharing this, Sparkle. We won’t let them get away with this!!! without letting them know they will regret having been so callous and cruel — right in their pocketbooks.
If the peeps traveled, they would not stay at Loews. Wait till the new feral colony moves in right after they get rid of this one and they find out that we were right all along.
Lets claw their eyes out. How would they like to be trapped and ‘relocated?’
Noir
This is very sad!
Truffle and Brulee
Thank you for the information, Sparkle! I had already sent them a nasty-gram through ACA, and now I have posted a NON-recommendation on their web site. It is gratifying to see a lot of other people giving that awful company a piece of their mind.
We will have our Mom do everything she can to help. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Great post, Sparkle. We will never, ever support Loews ever again. We’ve already written letters telling them off, and will do some of the other things you wrote about, too.
What a sad situation. Good, informative post Sparkle.
Where is the Orlando ASPCA in thIis They are violating FL Law – In addition, Loews has informed the caretaker of the cats that he may not enter the property to feed them, so it has been one week since they have had a meal. Remember, these cats are not wild animals – they are used to being fed by humans!
When a cat stops eating – either because of loss of appetite or because it is deprived of food – the liver to converts body fat to energy. If the process continues too long, fat cells build up in the liver and the cat develops feline fatty acid syndrome (feline hepatic lipidosis). Left untreated, the disease has a mortality rate of 90% – cats generally die from severe malnutrition or complications from liver failure.
Florida Statute 828.13 states that any person who willingly abandons an animal and allows it to suffer injury or malnutrition is guilty of a first degree misdemeanor and may be fined up to $5,000 in addition to imprisonment. Cats residing in feral cat colonies are protected by the same Florida laws as other domestic animals. Clearly, Loews is in violation of Florida’s animal cruelty law!
The FIGHT GOES ON!!!
ON facebook, and Twitter, and we ar all writing and emailing. Every time a piece of news hits the Facebook page letters must be written. We cannot just wring our paws and say ‘Oh Dear’ We have to act. these ferals have no voice but ours!!! OURS!!
Please guys, an email costs nothing, they need to know we have not gone away and we will NOT go away. One email from each amazing Sparkle reader!!
Respectfully,
Dash Kitten
Did you see they have brought in Motion capture cameras to catch anyone feeding the cats!!