This is my article published in the Euro Weekly News this week. Kitten season has been VERY busy this summer, and is still continuing. Since I wrote this article, another lady has contacted me who has 8 kittens in her garden!
The last month has been incredibly busy for me on the stray cat front, and also for the girls up at PAWs cattery Mojacar. This is not surprising as it has been kitten season, which happens twice a year but always seems worse in the summer. We have had a lot of calls about litters of kittens, mainly from people who feed feral and semi-feral female cats.
Of course if we weren’t around, these mothers and kittens would have to take their chances, and I’m sure there are many that we don’t ever hear about, and many that won’t survive. This to some extent is nature, but sometimes the size of a feral cat colony does have a lot to do with human intervention. It raises the whole problem again of kind people feeding stray cats, and indirectly facilitating them breeding, without exercising any form of population control.
I am now directly dealing with 5 litters here in Almerimar, all born to feral cats. I will try and help all these kittens to survive and find homes, but I am also determined that the mothers are caught and sterilised so that we don’t have 5 more litters in another few months time. This sterilisation programme is a hugely important part of our work here in Almerimar, and in Mojacar.
In addition to these semi-feral kittens, we have recently had calls from people who have found kittens here in the port, by a factory close to Mojacar, thrown over walls into gardens, rescued from a busy road and left outside a vet. I am hoping that the calls for help have stopped for now as neither the girls in Mojacar or myself can help any more, unless the people phoning are willing to themselves look after these cats and kittens while we find a way to re-home them. We are full, and urgently in need of foster homes, even more so at this time of year.
On a positive note, 3 of the people who have contacted me personally have been willing to foster the kittens born in their gardens, and I am working with them to get all the vaccinations etc. done so that they can be re-homed quickly. Whilst all this takes places, the important things are that the kittens are fed and safe.
Immediately we are looking for foster homes urgently for Cleo, a beautiful female siamese cat. She will travel to Germany in mid August, but her current foster Mum leaves soon for a holiday, and for Clarence pictured, who is a sweet-natured 6-year old male, abandoned some years ago. He is loving and friendly, but keeps losing the place reserved for him in the cattery to emergencies. We would like him to also have the chance of a loving home again soon, so if anyone out there can help us, and Cleo or Clarence, for just a few weeks, please do get in touch.
Character Cat Clarence
AND further to my article, the second photo is a new one of Clarence, who really would love his chance of a better life. He is the most loving of boys. When Sam who now feeds him outside, first met him, he was really on his last legs again, starving, dirty and depressed. He greeted her as his last hope, climbed into her lap, and put his paws around her neck. Now his is clean and well-fed again but still lonely and in need of a proper home. As he is an older cat and already castrated, he really only needs to come inside for about 10 days before the next transport to Germany, so if anyone can help by fostering him for that short period, we and Clarence, would be very grateful.
Character Cat Clarence