Whenever an animal is in distress, John Debacker’s help is only a phone call away. Bellmore’s premier animal rescuer has a mission to help every animal he can.
Debacker, 32, lives alone with his four cats. He got his start as an animal rescuer around the time he graduated from Iris Wolfson High School in 2010. He saw that a neighbor had abandoned four cats when they moved away, and he volunteered to help catch them and finding them loving homes.
“We need more animal rescuers in the world,” he said. “There’s just not enough of us. Unfortunately, people abandon cats every day, every week. There’s never, never an excuse for animal abuse — there’s always resources, such as shelters, rescues. They’ll take the kitten happily from them.”
After that first experience, Debacker committed himself to helping animals any time and anywhere. These days his rescue work prioritizes emergencies, most frequently cats stuck in trees and sewers, in the middle of highways and in other precarious places. While he most frequently handles cats, he has also rescued raccoons, squirrels and other domesticated small animals.
He does his work with equipment he bought himself: nets, leashes, incubators, trail cameras, microchip scanners and more.
“It’s full time, but I don’t get paid — I don’t charge money for the services,” Debacker said. “I do take donations, but it’s all optional. If someone can’t afford my services, the animal won’t suffer. I’ll still catch the animal either way.”
Indeed, he stops at nothing to protect the lives of misplaced critters. In 2023 he got a message describing feline screams coming from a tree in someone’s backyard. There, 40 feet in the air, was a 6-week-old kitten. Debacker climbed as high as he could, and the kitten, as he tells it, leapt into his outstretched hands. The cat now has a safe and loving home.
“I’m available 24/7 for emergency cases,” Debacker said. “If there’s a cat stranded on the highway, I’m not gonna just say I’m busy — I’m gonna respond right away.”
He responded to that exact circumstance not long ago. One of Debacker’s wildest rescues involved a kitten trapped near a concrete divider on the Wantagh State Parkway, which he was able to handle thanks to the help of State Police who closed the road temporarily.
He carried out an even more complex operation over the course of 18 days at Kennedy Airport in 2021, when he tracked and trapped a cat on the tarmac.
“Emergency cases happen on an as-needed basis,” he explained. “Otherwise I go out trapping feral cats.”
Debacker’s work with feral cats is a necessity to combat cat overpopulation on Long Island in a humane way. After catching a feral cat, he feeds it, cleans it and takes it to veterinarians in Huntington, Freeport and Westbury and beyond for surgery. Once the cat recovers, its ear is marked to show that it’s been spayed or neutered, and Debacker returns it to its colony.
Shari Feinberg came to Merrick in 2022, moving into a house where there were stray and feral cats outside. She called Debacker to take care of them, and since then the two have regularly worked together on feline matters.
“I just picked up another foster from John,” Feinberg said. “We have four foster failures and have a total of six cats — we have now become that proverbial crazy cat family.”
Feinberg is a strong proponent of getting pets from shelters and rescue operations rather than from breeders. “There are so many deserving, loving, sweet, equally beautiful (rescue) cats,” she said. “It will love you just as much, if not more, because you gave them that second chance.
Debacker’s efforts are funded through donations and his content creation online. Visit JohnTheCatGuy on YouTube and see ways to support his work at linktr.ee/JohnDebacker. Proceeds help pay rescued animals’ vet bills and fund new equipment. “I know things are tight for everybody financially,” Feinberg said, “(but) even if it's just $1, every little bit helps.”
For emergency services, contact Debacker at (516) 557-3328.
