Maybe people think the outpost of Lay, about 15 miles west of Craig, is a good place to drop off cats. Perhaps people with too many kittens on their hands imagine their unwanted felines will find a life of blissful happiness in Moffat County’s wide-open spaces, free to roam and hunt mice.

Fourteen-year-old Jennifer Bethell can’t explain it either.

But when people abandon cats on the edge of U.S. Highway 40 in front of her house, as they often do, she takes the responsible route and does something about it.

Since she was toddler, Bethell always had a way with the furry creatures. At about age 4, she first rescued a cat that was stuck in a pipe in her yard that otherwise would have died in the cold of winter. While Bethell is an excellent mother to about 30 rescued kittens and cats that have made their way to her from both friends and strangers, she’s at her limit.

“People who drop off kittens on the highway from their car expect them to live but they can’t,” she said. “I think people see our house out in the country and think that it’s OK to leave cats here. We get a box full of cats about two to three times a year that we don’t know where they came from.”

Indeed, Bethell’s way with the animals is both a blessing and a curse. Her rescued cats range in age from 1 month to more than 10 years old. This spring, when she discovered a box full of kittens in her back yard that were half-dead, she bottle-fed the animals every 30 minutes around the clock for three weeks. Though she loves the animals, Bethell wishes people would do the responsible thing and turn their unwanted animals over to a shelter. Better yet, she urges pet owners to have their pets spayed and neutered and get them their necessary vaccinations.

“It’s not a sin to take unwanted kittens to the pound,” Jennifer’s mother, Linda, said. “It is a shame when people leave them out by the road. It’s much more humane than letting them get eaten by foxes or coyotes or dying of starvation.”

Linda relayed a story of abandoned kittens that still haunts her today. She remembers walking along the highway and seeing a box of kittens that had been smashed by cars.

“People need to know there’s a humane society, and they need to utilize it,” she said.

To feed all those feline mouths, the Bethells estimate they tear through a 60-pound bag of cat food a week. It’s either that, or “watch them starve to death,” Jennifer’s father, Phil Bethell, said.

According to a Web site by the pet-advocacy group Homeward Bound three in 10 U.S. households own at least one cat. The site states that moving is the No. 1 reason why people abandon pets, and outdoor cats are more likely than indoor cats to be cast aside.

Two uncontrolled breeding cats that have an average of two litters a year with about three surviving kittens per litter, have the potential to propagate about 80,000 kittens in a 10-year life span, states another Web site that urges pet owners to spay and neuter.

During the years of pet ownership, Jennifer has been “bitten and scratched more times than I can count,” she said.

The home-schooled teenager, who has aspirations to someday become a veterinarian, loves that a literal cat family surrounds her. Her parents say that some of the family’s wilder cats easily come to Jennifer, but no one else. Older cats and young kittens fall easily in her lap — a testament to the sense of security and playful attention she readily provides.

Once Jennifer found a box of kittens on her doorstep, but didn’t know who left them until her best friend later confessed.

“I’ve forgiven her,” Jennifer said, but added, “It’s disheartening when people just leave them.”