WICOMICO COUNTY, Md. -- At a press conference on Monday, Wicomico County Sheriff Mike Lewis provided updates on an investigation into a cat sanctuary in Delmar. On Feb. 25, several agencies rescued more than 100 cats from an alleged cruelty case.
Lewis said his office, Humane World for Animals and multiple other agencies are still gathering evidence. He said that evidence will eventually be handed over to Wicomico County State's Attorney Jamie Dykes and he said he "certainly expects criminal charges to be placed."
"We will present our findings to her, we will rely heavily on the Humane Society of Wicomico County and Human World of Animals to assist us in gathering a solid case against this cat sanctuary," said Lewis.
Officials have been building that case since November. In the months since, officials said the sanctuary's owner had been given several notices to clean up the place.
"Each time we went the following time, those requests were not met," said Wayne Barrall, a Wicomico County Animal Control Officer involved with this case.
That is what ultimately led Humane World for Animals, the Wicomico County Sheriff's Office, the Humane Society of Wicomico County, Wicomico County Animal Control and the Salisbury City Police Department Animal Control Unit to the property last week.
Lewis said the sheer number of agencies involved, coupled with the time it took to secure search and seizure warrants, is why it took a few months to actually carry out what he called a "Herculean task."
"We knew we were going to have to have resources to care for those cats. We don't want to take them out of one harmful situation and put them in another without the proper resources," said Lewis.
He acknowledged that those resources are not readily available locally.
"We knew that our humane society didn't have them, and we had to rely heavily on the experts from Humane World of Animals and the veterinarians and those clinicians to be here to assist us in carrying out this effort," said Lewis.
Kim Nock, Executive Director of the Humane Society of Wicomico County, said none of the rescued cats will be euthanized.
As we reported last week, the cats were taken to an undisclosed Humane World for Animals facility and received emergency veterinary care.