Learn to live with feral cats
We get lots of requests to take ferals that are not wanted. But moving a feral cat from one place to another is not simple and also, with the new animal welfare laws, it is now illegal to move feral cats and their colonies. They are territorial and will often build relationships with other cats in their group. They decide where they want to live and with whom. It is unkind to take them from their home territory without a very good reason.
We have tried to introduce many feral cats to APROP’s small colony but most of them disappear and we never see them again. They end up wandering alone in unfamiliar territory. Some have made their way back to their original location. The others, who knows…..
Similarly for feral mums with kittens. We can’t take in feral mums with their kittens to the shelter. We don’t have the space for them in the cattery and feral cats don’t do well being confined. Also feral mums in particular can very protective and vicious and so dangerous for our volunteers. It also means that we are not easily able to handle the kittens to socialise them and so they too become unadoptable. Separating the kittens from their mother is not good for the kittens or their mum. Nursing mothers who lose their kittens become distressed and are also likely to suffer from mastitis because they are full of milk with no kittens to give it to. Fostering young kittens is labour intensive and young kittens always do better if they can stay with their mum.
If a cat has a cut in its ear it means that it has been sterilised and returned to its location and that is where it lives. If the cat has not been sterilised, then the best thing you can do is to trap the cat and have it sterilised. Most vets will lend traps and offer a discounted rate for sterilising feral cats.
Feral cats don’t expect much out of life but they should have the right to live in peaceful co-existence with humans.
APROP supports the trapping, sterilisation and return of feral cats in Pego. Please consider donating to help APROP continue this much needed work. https://www.aprop-pego.org/financial-donation/
