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Friday, 20 October 2017, 11:26
If not neutered, one female cat could give birth to 25 kittens in one year. Uncastrated kittens can then start reproducing at five months old. This is a real problem in Mijas and Fuengirola, where dozens of unsterilised cats are abandoned on the streets every week. This is where charities like Mijas Felina and Aristochat step in. Both based in Mijas, Aristochat is a cat shelter and adoption centre, and Mijas Felina cares for stray cats in the streets.
Mijas Felina
facebook.com/mijasfelina
Aristochat aristochat.es, to donate 1 euro a month
https //www.teaming.net/aristochatasociacionfelina
Cat sitting services Facebook
The Cat Sitting Services on the Costa del Sol
Formed in 2015, Mijas Felina aims to neuter all abandoned cats and control the stray cat population. President Almudena Calzado explains that her association follows the 'Trap, Neuter, Return' (TNR) method for controlling the number of stray cats. Mijas Felina relies on the help of the 25 active members to carry out this work on their own residential estate. You could wait for hours and hours to just capture one cat, says Almudena. After trapping a cat, the members then take it to one of three vets with whom they have arranged lower-priced spaying and neutering. Once recovered, the cat is then returned to where it was found and is continually monitored by the members. This involves visiting the cat colonies, which are populated by around four cats each, every day, rain or shine, to check on them, feed them, and take them to the vet if necessary. It is clearly not easy work.
Our goal is that the Spanish government makes neutering pets compulsory and opens a centre for cheap neutering, if not the problem will never stop, Almudena Calzado says. She believes that there are so many abandoned cats because people do not know how to treat cats; they see them as things which are easy to dispose of. Therefore, part of her mission at Mijas Felina is to change mentalities and educate people, from a young age, about the importance of caring for pets. She wants to stress that everyone can help, even if they are not directly associated with Mijas Felina. If someone finds a stray cat but is unable to home it themselves, they are encouraged to inform the association about it.
While members of Mijas Felina look after cats on the streets in order to save them from being hurt or poisoned by people who find them to be a nuisance in their residential area, Aristochat takes in abandoned cats and cares for them at one of the two shelters in Mijas until they are adopted. Each shelter currently homes around 150 cats.
Most of the cats are brought in by people who find them on the streets, explains Chantal Lancelot, owner of Aristochat. In the main office there are currently three six-week-old kittens. They were all abandoned outside the gates of Aristochat and found there by Chantal the next morning. Apparently this is a common occurrence.
Both centres need money and volunteers. Aristochat costs over 5,000 euros per month to run and Mijas Felina needs funds for the traps and neutering. For Mijas Felina, volunteers would carry out the vital TNR work and sometimes foster kittens that need socialising. At Aristochat, Lancelot says that she just needs people to come in occasionally to stroke the cats and pick them up to prepare them for adoption. Both organisations have money boxes in shops around Mijas, and Aristochat is selling a cat calendar rto aise some extra money.
Despite the challenges, Almudena Calzado stresses that she is very proud of doing this job. Sometimes it is a burden and you don't want to go every day, but then you see the cats, and they are OK, and it's worth it. She believes that cats are under-appreciated. They are skilful hunters and can prevent actual pests, like mice, from entering residential areas, she points out.
Neither organisation is supported financially by the local authorities and rely solely on one-off donations or the regular support of members.
According to Mary de Sojo, a member of Mijas Felina who also collaborates with Aristochat, the work of the organisations is not recognised by the authorities, despite helping the people of Fuengirola and Mijas. De Sojo has set up her own cat-sitting service for when owners are on holiday, visiting them and feeding them in their own homes, and funds raised go to Aristochat and Mijas Felina.
We need to help each other; what the authorities are currently doing does not work so they should support Mijas Felina in controlling the stray cat population instead, she said.
Members of the charity have special permits from the Mijas town hall to feed stray cats, something which is usually forbidden, but they are still fighting for this permission in Fuengirola.
The organisations say that, ideally, this work will not continue forever. They hope that future neutering schemes will mean that the stray cat population will not keep increasing at such a concerning rate.
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