Can we take a moment to applaud Gretchen Byrne?

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When she’s not fighting crime, policewoman Gretchen fills her time with rescuing cats. She’s saved more than 60 cats and kittens so far.

‘Everyone knows me as the cop that loves cats,’ says Gretchen. ‘If I’m not working, this is what I’m doing.’

Gretchen started out her cat-saving mission two years ago, when she began feeding stray cats while she was out on patrol.


She’d spotted cats scavenging for scraps in the back allerys of South Florida, where many animal shelters are filled to capacity.

On her 3am patrols, Gretchen made sure to head back to the same spots and give the hungry cats some snacks. At the same time, a group of cats was moved into the police station where Gretchen was based – so she began to give them food and care for them too.

Gretchen already had four cats at home, so when one of the station’s cats had kittens, she knew she wouldn’t be able to permanently adopt them.



Instead, she took the litter of kittens home, nursed them to health, then dedicated herself to finding a home for each and every one – appealing to other members of the police force to give them a home.

Cat lover that she is, Gretchen did end up keeping two of the kittens in her home. But the experience gave her an idea – if she began to capture stray cats struggling for food on the streets, she might be able to use social media to find them all homes.

‘As an animal lover, when I saw those kittens in the station I had to take them in,’ says Gretchen.

‘I would always worry if I went on vacation about whether they would be fed – they would be in the back of my mind.

‘Although I loved seeing them at the police station, I wanted them to be safe and in a home. It just snowballed from there.’

From then on, Gretchen has rescued every stray cat she’s been able to.

When she finds a stray she’ll bring him or her back home to make sure they’re happy and healthy, before using Instagram to find them forever homes.

When Gretchen finds kittens, she’ll bring them back to the station so they can be kept warm and bundled up, and will race back on her breaks to keep them fed.

Through the night she wakes up every four hours to give them a bottle, too.

She’ll sometimes have eight cats in her home at a time, and uses her own money to cover vet bills, neutering, and food for all the cats and kittens she rescues, but she’s not bothered about the fuss. Gretchen’s just happy she’s been able to help so many cats.

So far she’s helped to rehome 63 cats in total, mostly through her Instagram, @bocaratona.

‘Because I work such long shifts, I take the youngest kittens with me to the station,’ Gretchen explains.

‘They are so small that I can just keep them in their carrier.

‘I will get three breaks – a 40-minute lunch break and two 10-minute breaks.



‘Instead of going for pizza with my colleagues I use that time to run to the station and feed them.

‘It all comes out of my paycheck at the end of the day but I don’t have kids so it is probably still cheaper that having kids and I’m paid in good karma.

‘The other thing is that is really nice to come home and have kittens to help me de-stress. I’m dealing with a lot of stuff on road patrol.

‘It’s almost like therapy – I help them and they help me.

‘It’s a lot, but if I wasn’t doing this, there would be an abundance of cats on the streets.

‘I will do it for the rest of my life.’

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