RIVER FALLS – Falcon Felines has found a new home on the UW-River Falls campus after taking a hiatus this winter.

The program, which is a collaboration with Dunn County Humane Society (a no-kill shelter), not only helps find homes for cats, but helps students in the Animal Science 421 Advanced Canine and Feline Care & Management class gain hands-on, real-world experience.

The program, formerly located in Hagestad Hall, had to pause in its operations until a new home could be found. Hagestad is set for demolition this summer in order to make way for the new Sci-Tech building.

Senior Roxanna Cridelich, a member of the Falcon Felines social media team, is thrilled to have a new space for the program.

“We are newly located in North Hall Room 25K,” Cridelich said. “Which is in the basement and there are signs leading you to our room during adoption hours.”

Falcon Felines is open to the public 4:30-6 p.m. Wednesdays until it closes for the semester May 3 or until the cats have been adopted.

Students learned they’d have a new space in North Hall around Christmas, but renovations had to be completed to accommodate the space and layout the program requires. They officially moved in about halfway through the current semester.

“We officially got to see the updated room and do adjustments before we had coordinated with Dunn County Humane Society to bring in the two loving cats (Tippy and Empress Eyepatch) we have currently,” Cridelich said.

The program offers students critical, hand-on knowledge of how to property care for cats and how to accommodate any special needs, Cridelich added.  

“We also added a new team which is responsible for creating an enrichment plan for the cats,” she said. “This program is still offered as part of Advance Canine/Feline Care and Management class. We still get to learn valuable information about our cats here in the program and still apply what we have learned in our other animal science classes such as animal health, animal behavior, companion animal care and management, animal welfare, etc.”

The program will be put on hold for the summer while students are away, but will resume in the fall when school starts. Returning students in the animal science companion animal program can enroll in the course and transition into Falcon Felines with the same goal in mind.

“That goal is to learn/promote socialization and adoption for the cats who make good pets, but don’t have homes,” Cridelich said.

Twelve students are currently enrolled in the class; seven of those are team leads who coordinate with their designated team and the faculty advisor to achieve their goals.

The initial funding for the program came from a U.S. Department of Agriculture Capacity Building Grant that Associate Professor Beth Rausch received. Students get hands-on experience monitoring the cats’ behavioral and physical health. They also use social media to help promote adoptions, which are conducted through the Dunn County Humane Society. Students are divided into teams, each focusing on a different aspect of running Falcon Felines: Cleaning, adoption, physical and behavioral, and social media.

To learn more, email falconfelines@uwrf.edu or find them on social media:

Facebook: Falcon Felines

Instagram: Uwrf.falconfelines