I’m very passionate about rescuing animals and adopting from shelters. We adopted my cat from a local shelter with a surplus of cats squished into small cages just to make room for them all. My first cat came from the same shelter. I always advise friends looking into adopting a pet to take a trip to their local shelter before going to a pet store or breeder.
I first heard about Beth Stern through my sister. I knew the name “Stern” from her husband Howard Stern, but I had no idea what Beth did. I soon learned that she fosters cats, meaning she gives cats a temporary home until they are permanently adopted. She often partners with the shelter North Shore Animal League, which is a no-kill shelter dedicated to rescuing as many animals as they can.
Beth posts many pictures of her foster cats a day, updating her followers on the cats’ journeys and socialization processes. Her foster cats often have backgrounds of being rescued from abusive living conditions or from the streets. She dedicates her time to helping these kitties learn to trust humans and sometimes helping to nurse them back to health if they were injured. Beth has the magic touch with animals, and has even been able to socialize the most reluctant of feral cats.
When Beth feels that a foster cat is ready to be loved in a permanent home, she accepts applications from her followers to adopt the cat. She makes sure that each cat goes to a perfect family and delivers all her foster cats to their new homes herself. By fostering these cats and helping keep cats out of shelters, Beth helps spread the word about lovable cats that may have been overlooked in a shelter. She also has friends that help rescue cats from kill shelters, which euthanize animals due to lack of space in the shelter, and these cats get a second chance at life in Beth’s care.
Beth Stern is a vocal advocate for the “adopt don’t shop” movement, which urges people to adopt animals from shelters rather than go to expensive pet stores and breeders. She is an inspiring figure on social media because of all the work she does for animals, fostering hundreds of cats over her lifetime and even adopting five permanent cats of her own. You can apply to adopt one of Beth’s fosters if you’re looking to adopt a cat, but for me, it’s so heartwarming to simply watch the transformations of all the cats that she fosters. Some cats start out with horrible injuries that sometimes even require eye or leg removal, but they prove to be, as Beth says, “perfectly imperfect.” Others start out by hiding in all of Beth’s pictures, and by the end of their foster time, they’re total lap cats. Seeing all of these adorable kitties that were rescued from shelters or horrible living conditions always brightens up my Instagram feed.
You can follow her yourself on Instagram @bethostern!