Overpopulation is a catastrophe
The overpopulation of cats in Mbombela is leading to animal diseases and the SPCA does not have the funds to do anything about it.
MBOMBELA – It's breeding season and the number of stray cats in the city has increased drastically, reaching frightening proportions and causing diseases to spread like wildfire.
Residents are encouraged not to feed the stray animals and to sterilise their pets if they are not pedigrees or if owners don't want to breed them.
Shan Paton, trainee inspector at Lowveld SPCA, says, “Ideally we want to rent out cat traps to catch as many as we can in order to test them for Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) and cat flu. The healthy ones should be sterilised and returned to their 'homes'.”
Paton says the cats with the untreatable diseases should be euthanised by a vet before they spread the diseases.
“Although we would love to tell people to bring their cats in to the SPCA to have us sterilise them, we don't have a vet or the money to do that,” says Paton. “We can, however, subsidise the operation on feral cats and have whoever brings them in pay significantly less than they usually would.”
The reason the sterilised cats should return to their usual spot is to prevent unsterilised and infected ones from moving into that spot and continue to breed. “The sterilised colony will fight off any newcomers,” says Paton.
The SPCA cannot catch the feral cats themselves and therefore relies on residents who see them to catch them using traps. The problem is that the SPCA is running low on these devices and does not have the funds to buy new ones.
“Unfortunately people steal our cat traps so now we have to ask a
R400 deposit. They want nothing to do with that so they'll rather just leave the cats and let them breed.”
Dr Moses Mabunda, deputy director of Mpumalanga Veterinary Hospital, echoes Paton's concerns. “Stray dogs and feral cats are serious problems this time of the year, especially in rural areas in the province. People just don't care to sterilise and castrate their animals, or they don't have the money to do so.
“These animals eventually end up on the streets, carrying diseases such as parvo (cat or dog flu) or FIV.”
Mabunda launched a mobile animal clinic in 2010 to treat pets in rural areas. However, the service cannot treat all stray animals, similar to the SPCA.
Although neither can fix the problem, they are calling on the public to assist with the dire situation.
“If there is anyone who can make these simple cat traps, it will be invaluable to us.”
The design is simple: the metal cage contains a pedal which causes the trap door to shut as soon as the cat is inside.
If any reader has the time and materials to make it, they will be helping the SPCA financially and assisting in reducing the cat population problem.
