Sherree Capello spent 30 years in the nonprofit sector in Boston — working in finance and community development — before moving to Hilton Head Island and turning her attention to cats. In November 2025, she and co-founder Carolyn Schroeder launched Salty Paws of the Lowcountry, a 100% volunteer-run, foster-based rescue committed to community cats, TNR, and keeping animals in their homes whenever possible. We sat down with Sherree to talk about kitten season, the TNR process, feeding stations, and what it actually takes to make a difference for cats on this island.
What Brought You Here
You spent three decades in the nonprofit world before starting Salty Paws. What made you shift toward animal rescue?
I’d worked in finance and community development for nonprofits in Boston for 30 years — everything from housing to healthcare, including time at the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I’ve always been drawn to work that meets communities where their greatest need is. When I moved to Hilton Head, I saw what was happening with cats here and I couldn’t look away. I had the organizational background to actually do something about it, and my co-founder Carolyn had spent 30 years in rescue — she ran a rescue program in Illinois alongside her colleagues, served as its lawyer, and was fostering the entire time. We met through a volunteer organization, realized we had complementary skills, and Salty Paws just happened from there. We submitted our paperwork at the beginning of November and it was approved almost immediately.
What did you see that made you feel there was a real need here?
The abandonment rate. People — including tourists — treat cats as more expendable than they should. We see animals dumped, we see people feeding cats on vacation and then leaving, we see owners who can’t afford care and feel their only option is surrender. What nobody was saying to those owners was: what can we do to help you keep your animal? That’s what we ask first. We can provide food, litter, leashes, medical care. Surrender is the last resort, not the first offer.
Kitten Season
We’re in the middle of kitten season right now. What do you want people to know?
Kitten season runs longer than people think, and the decisions you make in the first hours can be life or death. The most important thing is understanding what you’re dealing with before you act. A kitten’s age tells you almost everything — what it needs to eat, whether it can regulate its own body temperature, whether it needs round-the-clock feeding.
Salty Paws has a guide that walks you through the developmental stages — what the ears look like, whether the eyes are open, approximate size — so you can gauge age even without a vet. See the kitten age chart here.
What’s the most common mistake people make when they find kittens?
Feeding them the wrong thing. People reach for regular kitten milk, but some kittens won’t tolerate it. Sometimes goat milk is a better option. And their condition can turn fast — much faster than people expect. If you find kittens and you’re not sure what to do, call us before you feed them anything. We can walk you through it.
The other big one: assuming kittens are abandoned because their mother isn’t visible. Mom cats leave their litter while they forage. If the kittens are warm, quiet, and in a safe spot, wait and watch before intervening. A mother who comes back to find humans hovering may not return.
Community Cats: The Basics
What’s the difference between a stray cat and a feral cat?
A stray cat has typically lived with people at some point — it’s been someone’s pet, or has at least been socialized to humans. It may be frightened, but it’s usually approachable, especially if it recognizes you. A feral cat was born outdoors or lost socialization very early, and is genuinely wild in its behavior around people. Even living near humans doesn’t often change that.
In practice, it’s a spectrum. Some cats are stray but friendly. Some young ferals can be socialized with patience. Age matters a lot — the older a feral cat is, the harder it is to bring them around to human contact.
There are a lot of outdoor and community cats on Hilton Head. Is the population getting better, worse, or holding steady?
It’s getting better, but slowly, and it depends almost entirely on access to TNR. In the last couple of years we’ve started to see real progress — but the gains are fragile. When TNR resources are interrupted or go unused, the population swings back quickly. A single unspayed female can have multiple litters a year. The math isn’t on our side unless we’re consistent.
Tourists seem to feed cats wherever they find them. Is that a problem?
It’s a well-intentioned problem. Tourists feed cats near hotels, in parks, wherever they encounter them — and then they leave. The cats come to associate that spot with food that won’t always be there. It also pulls cats away from their regular feeding stations, which creates a vacuum. Other cats move in to fill it. We completely understand the impulse — people love animals and they want to help — but unstructured feeding without TNR compounds the problem rather than solving it.
TNR: How It Works
Can you walk us through what TNR actually is and how it works here?
TNR stands for Trap, Neuter, Return. The idea is simple: trap a community cat, have it spayed or neutered, vaccinate it, and return it to the colony where it was living. A sterilized colony can’t grow. Over time, the population naturally decreases as cats age. It’s the only approach that actually works long-term.
Here in Beaufort County, there are two separate programs at the Spay/Neuter Clinic (SNAC) in Okatie:
The free feral TNR program runs on Tuesdays and is open to anyone in Beaufort County at no cost. You request spots, trap your cats the two days before, and volunteers — including Salty Paws — can help you with traps, transport, and overnight holding. The cat receives a spay or neuter, an ear tip, a rabies vaccine, an FVRCP vaccine, and a Felv/FIV test. The next day, it goes back exactly where it came from.
The paid domestic program is for owned pets or cats you want to bring in as pets. It’s heavily discounted, and includes the procedure, vaccinations, and optional microchipping. This program doesn’t automatically include an ear tip, because the assumption is you know whether your cat has been fixed.
How do people sign up for the free TNR program?
You make the appointment directly through SNAC — their website is hhhumane.org/about-snac — and then let us know your appointment date as soon as you have it. Two days before, we’ll get you the traps and show you how to use them. We can also help with transport to Okatie and overnight holding after the procedure if you need it. Not everyone can do this alone, and that’s exactly what we’re here for.
What does Salty Paws’ involvement look like in practice?
We help people through the whole process. We lend traps. We drive cats to and from Okatie. We hold cats overnight after procedures to monitor them. We work alongside neighbors, businesses, property managers — whoever’s dealing with a colony and doesn’t know where to start. We helped a landscaping company not long ago that had a colony on their property that had gotten out of hand because the people feeding them didn’t know TNR existed. We went in with the traps, worked with their staff to set them, drove the cats, and the landscaping crew held them overnight because there were so many. That kind of community effort is what actually moves the needle.
If you have a cat situation — stray, feral, colony, whatever — call us first. If we can’t help directly, we’ll know who can.
How do you know if a cat has already been fixed?
The standard marker is an ear tip — the very tip of the left ear is surgically snipped while the cat is under anesthesia. It’s the universal sign that a community cat has been through TNR. If you see a tipped ear, don’t trap that cat.
TNR’d cats also receive a small tattoo near the surgical site. If a cat ends up under anesthesia for some reason without a visible ear tip — and the vet shaves the area for surgery — the tattoo is there as a backup. That saves the cat from an unnecessary procedure and spares everyone the time, cost, and stress of surgery a cat didn’t need.
What about owned cats — is there anything owners should know about identification?
If your cat goes outside, please microchip them. If someone traps your cat and it ends up at a shelter without identification, the outcome may not be good. The chip only works if it’s registered — that step doesn’t happen automatically.
An ear tip on an owned cat can also prevent a lot of heartache. If an outdoor cat looks like a stray, someone may trap it. If it’s chipped and registered, that scan at the shelter connects them back to you. If a breakaway collar breaks off — which is what it’s designed to do — suddenly you have an unidentified cat with no way to trace it back home.
Feeding Stations
How many active feeding stations are there on the island?
Close to 50 that we know about, possibly more. That number goes up and down as caretakers change, colonies shift, and new sites are identified. There’s no centralized map right now — though it’s something we’d love to build eventually. A site map would help us understand where colonies are growing, where TNR is needed most, and where we might be able to connect people who are feeding the same cats without knowing it.
What does it look like when stations are organized versus just happening organically?
Honestly, it’s a mix of both. Some people set up their own sites and manage them independently for years. Restaurants often maintain colonies because they appreciate what the cats do for the ecosystem. Then there are organized sites where multiple caretakers coordinate, share feeding duties, and stay in communication with us.
The need for coordination becomes clear pretty quickly. I’ve connected volunteers who were feeding the same colony of cats from opposite sides of a property without knowing it. Everyone had a different name for the same cat. Once they started talking, they could divide up the work, share information, and actually track what was happening with the colony.
Can someone contact Salty Paws if they want to set up a feeding station?
Absolutely. We’re happy to answer questions, help people get set up, and connect new caretakers with anyone already working nearby. Some feeding sites are also registered with Beaufort County Animal Services, which is worth knowing. Just reach out.
What Salty Paws Does Day to Day
Salty Paws has only been open since November — what does a typical week actually look like?
There’s no such thing as a typical week. We’re 100% volunteer-run and foster-based, so our work follows wherever the need is. In any given week we might be coordinating TNR for a neighborhood that called us, managing foster placements, delivering food to the community pantry, driving cats to Okatie, socializing kittens, making vet runs, or helping someone figure out what to do with a pregnant stray that just showed up under their porch.
We have about 35 active volunteers, and they cover a range of roles — drivers, trappers, foster families, cat socializers, facility helpers, social media, event support, and people who come in to bag and prep community food. There’s something for everyone, including people who can’t bring an animal into their home.
Tell me about the community food pantry.
The pantry is one of the things I’m most proud of. The idea is simple: if someone can’t afford to care for their pet, we want to help them keep that animal rather than surrender it. We provide food, litter, leashes, collars, bedding — donated supplies that go back out to the community. We partner with local food pantries to reach people who need us. We have a volunteer who drives around and personally delivers to people who can’t get there themselves.
We currently work with four local pantries: Sandalwood Community Food Pantry, St. Andrew By-The-Sea UMC, First Presbyterian Church, and Bluffton Community Kitchen. We show up, we talk to people, and we ask: what do you need? Not just food — meds, supplies, whatever their situation calls for. If we have it, we get it to them.
You mentioned wanting to partner with Meals on Wheels. Can you talk about that?
I found out recently about a cat who was left homeless when her owner either passed away or was moved to a care facility. And I started thinking — how many people receiving Meals on Wheels have a pet? How many of them can’t get out to get food for that animal? The delivery volunteers are already in those homes. It would take almost nothing to have them note what animals they’re seeing and flag anyone who needs help. I want to formalize that. It could get food to animals whose owners are invisible to us right now.
What’s the vision for Salty Paws in the next few years?
We’re growing fast — faster than we expected, honestly. The big goal is land. We want to buy property for a larger facility — one where we won’t have to turn any animal away. The existing sanctuary on the island is slowly winding down, and there won’t be another option if we don’t build one. I’ve already talked to vets who’ve said they’d volunteer their time for a spay/neuter facility if we had a physical space to offer. The infrastructure matters.
But even before we get there, there’s so much we want to do. Fostering pets for unhoused people on cold nights so that people don’t have to choose between warmth and their animals. Coordinating with community shelters who open during cold snaps. Deepening the pantry work. Getting a feeding station map together. We’re only eight months old and we’ve already come further than I thought possible. Where we shine is helping when others don’t.
Misconceptions and Hard Truths
What do people get wrong about community cats?
That the solution is to get rid of them. I hear it all the time — just remove them. But remove them to where? And even if you could, more cats would move in within weeks. Nature abhors a vacuum. The colonies you see are managed; they’re stable; the cats are often healthier than people assume. An ear-tipped cat in a managed colony has been vaccinated and sterilized. It’s not a health threat — it’s a functioning part of the ecosystem.
People also misunderstand what ear-tipping means. They see a cat with a notched ear and assume something’s wrong with it. It’s actually the opposite — that mark means someone already did right by that cat.
What’s the hardest part of this work?
Not being able to help everyone. There are cats suffering out there right now that we don’t have the resources to reach. Every time I have to say no, or put someone on a wait list, it costs me something. I have to remind myself constantly: you can’t save everyone, but you save who you can. That’s not a comfortable place to sit. But it’s the truth of this work.
What would you most want a Hilton Head resident reading this to walk away knowing?
That there’s help available, and you don’t have to figure it out alone. Found a stray? Call us. Feeding a colony and not sure what to do next? Call us. Can’t afford vet care and worried about your pet? Call us. If we can’t help you directly, we will get you to someone who can. That’s the whole point.
And if you want to give back — foster, volunteer, donate — we’ll put you to work. We need people who love animals and want to see them get a second chance. That’s the only qualification.
📞 843-259-2085 | Salty Paws of the Lowcountry
Sherree Capello is the co-founder of Salty Paws of the Lowcountry, a 501(c)(3) volunteer-run cat rescue and community resource serving Hilton Head Island and the Bluffton area. To reach Salty Paws, call 843-259-2085. To browse adoptable animals or learn more, visit them on Facebook, Instagram, or their website.
Have a community cat situation? See our Community Cats page for more guidance, or visit the Affordable Pet Care page for local food pantry listings and low-cost services.