February Visit

We're now in the final stages of the February visit. Only 2 more cats to collect and release on Monday then that's it! Kerry and myself (Jaki) have just finished washing the last cages and stacking them in the 2 storerooms we use and now Kerry is bravely tackling the donation of 'change' weve been given by two young people we helped with feral cats they're feeding (see photo below). It may take some time to count...and she's only got until Tuesday when she returns to the UK!?

So what happened this visit?
We decided to ask people to call us before the volunteers arrived on the island (you can see our happy crew in the photo!) as this meant they weren't having to deal with calls whilst trapping. For 3wks calls had come in and it enabled us to have an idea of numbers before we started.
A meeting was held, as usual, on the Sunday when new paperwork was discussed and explained and the jobs received so far were handed out. We split the island in two as we had done in November when it worked well. Twice as many calls had been received from the San Antonio/San Jose region than the rest of the island so that was designated as an area and the rest of the island as another. We also wanted to concentrate on the many feral colonies in San Antonio Town if we could as that was an area that still needs dealing with.
Overall 91 jobs were called in with more than 200 cats to trap. And the calls are still coming but people are being asked to call back in October.

In the East of the island we had Kelly and Steve (first time volunteers), Sue and Dave (long time volunteers), Lisa and Kerry (1st and 2nd time volunteers) and Simon who traps fulltime in England for the Celia Hammond Trust and came out the last trip. They mixed and matched themselves into teams depending on the jobs visited and had 4 vans at their disposal. This was possible because 2 vans were paid for by Sue and Dave. One was a large van which was perfect for taking large numbers of cages so Dave assisted the team by collecting and delivering cages as required.
On the West of the island we had Tracey and Sue (first time volunteers), and Jill and Kerry (long time volunteer and 1st time volunteer) both teams had vans. We also had Lara, Jaki and Tess who used 2 cars for trapping the first two days but then had to pass on their 6 cages to Tracey and Sue who were dealing with bigger numbers and kept running out.

As usual it was a week of laughs, sadness, frustrations and manic rushing around. We're still waiting to calculate the final numbers of cats trapped and neutered but we did manage to rescue 7 kittens; 3 which have found homes on the island and the others will go to Germany when fly partners can be found. Sadly we also had to deal with 3 incidents of cats being hit by cars. None survived.

This visit we made sure that each person who called us was given a care4cats leaflet in the required language, and many were handed out to passersby. Our consent form was also re-designed to fit more information on and was in both English and Spanish. However the big change was that every job now had a reference number issued. This not only allowed us to know at a glance how many calls we had received but more importantly we were able to track back every cat trapped and neutered. It also stops people walking off the street into vets saying the charity will pay for the neutering of their cat. All vets now know that they must first have an authorisation code on a signed consent form before neutering any cat.

The teams of volunteers met some lovely people over the week, many who are caring for feral colonies as best they can. One German lady, Crystal, feeds over 415 cats around San Jose/San Antonio. Many are neutered but it was great to finally get the chance to put our heads together and identify where cat colonies were in the San Antonio area that still need attention. Unfortuntely the teams ran out of cages throughout the week so weren't able to hit as many spots as we hoped...particularly in San An town.

The lack of cages is quite frustrating for volunteers. We go to colonies that haven't been fed so they can be easily caught. You get most of them but run out of cages so you can't continue. Of course you then can't go back for the others until you pick up cats at the vets and release them thus freeing up cages. However you have to feed the cats because they haven't been fed so can't return the next day. It can become a logistical nightmare!
Having discussed this we now feel the time has come to split the visits in two. 1 set of volunteers could work for one week in the West using all the equipment. Then a second team comes out the following week to work the other side of the island again having access to all the equipment. That way no-one should run out of cages. The other benefit is the vets don't have to work in one concentrated week.
So that is our future plan.
I'll report back in a week or two with the details of the numbers trapped and neutered and photos of the trip! So stay tuned!