Just to show that some feral cats do have...

...the enjoyment of a Christmas dinner! Here are the Sta Eularia posse enjoying a lovely meal of turkey courtesy of their feeders Susan and Michael. They also dined on roast beef too! Sadly though...no sprouts (Susan - how could you not allow them the delight of a crunchy sprout!?!)
Hope you all had as good a Christmas dinner as these lucky cats!

Can we like to take this opportunity to thank everyone that helped our Charity throughout the year and hopefully we'll welcome some new volunteers in 2010. Don't forget there're many ways you can help so do get in touch and if you can make a donation to help keep our neutering programme going we'd be very grateful.
Have a very happy New Year everyone!!  See you in 2010!

The Story of Clarence...

...so called because he is a little cross eyed like the lion!
Clarence has lived in Santa Eulalia for about three years. He's a bit of a tough guy, but a wonderful father to the many kittens he has fathered with the lovely Gemma.
We, as feeders of this colony, were very concerned about his ears. They were black on the tips and obviously cancerous.
When Angela (the founder of care4cats) was in Ibiza in February this year we asked for her help to get the poor boy sorted out.
This was no easy task. Angela met us with a basket to trap him, no luck off he went. The next day Angela brought a cat dropper basket. A success! He was caught.

We didn't think we would ever see him again as his ears were so bad, but we had great news; he survived the ear operation and castration and was on his way back to us when he'd recovered.

The vet had removed the tips of his ears to cut away the cancer and he looked a sorry sight for a few months with the stitches in his ears. Now he now looks so much happier and is fit and well. He has the most beautiful blue eyes. We still can't touch him but he looks at us with such affection.

By the way that is not a tic on his head in the photo it is a piece of meat!!!
With thanks to Angela and all from Care4Cats for giving this little fella a chance to have a better life.

Susan and Michael

November TNR Trip

November saw us return to continue to Ibiza to continue with our TNR program (trap, neuter, return) on Ibiza. We estimate there are over 1000’s of abandoned or feral cats living in the wild...so we always expect lots of calls and this trip was no exception. Along re-visiting the regular cat colonies to neuter any new cats that have been abandoned we also got over 100 calls from residents desperately needing help to TNR feral cats/kittens that’d turned up on their property. Many are happy to feed these cats but of course don’t want more kittens born. Given that a female cat gives birth twice a year from the age of 6mths to an average litter of 4 it’s paramount that they’re neutered.

This year it was great to welcome new volunteers from Ibiza (Kerry, Jo, Tess, Lara, Jaki and Terry) which was absolutely fab and a help to the UK volunteers who, along with trapping for 10hrs a day, also have to navigate around a strange island! Overall we managed to help 95% of the people who called and neutered over 350 cats - plus rescued 3 tiny kittens that had been dumped by the river in Sta Eularia. So a good job was done by all.

Watch out for Angela's full report - coming soon!

The photo above shows the new team of volunteers trapping cats in a cat colony in the San Jose area that are cared for by Glenys. We trapped and neutered 10 adults and kittens - so hopefully no more unwanted kittens will be born there!

In the Christmas spirit of giving can we ask you to kindly spare a thought for these poor cats on Ibiza who have only the charity there to help them. We currently receive no help from the authorities on the island or any charitable organisations. If you'd like to help you can donate online on the website and all donations are gratefully received. Without them we couldn't continue our work. Thank You so much!

Nearly there!

Coming towards the end of a very hard week now as the team start to wind up operations on their work trapping and neutering feral cats.

As usual a large amount of calls were received from people who were caring for feral cats and worried about more being born. Added to that are the large number of cat colonies the charity know of around the island and which they try and keep on top of, as sadly, there are often new cats that are dumped.

Amongst incidents already being reported from the team are the rescue of a rabbit (which unfortunately didn't make it due to Myxomatosis) and a small kitten that was lying in a gutter having been hit by a car that thankfully did survive after intensive care by Toni, the vet in Puig d'en Vals.

As usual its been a story of scrapes, climbing hills, scaling walls, trekking through woods and trying to outwit canny cats who just know you're there to trap them! The experienced team of volunteer trappers (Angela, Sue and Jill) were this year joined by Luke (a veterinary nurse) and Simon (who traps cats for the Celia Hammond Trust) who all travelled from the UK. From Ibiza were some new volunteers which was great! The more we have the better! Kerry lives in Es Cana, Jo from Portinatx, Jaki who's been helping since May living in San Jose and then Lara, Terri and Tess who have all recently moved to Ibiza. It's great to have people volunteer who live on the island as it helps the charity to continue the work throughout the year, funds permitting. There's so much to do like getting businesses to host collection boxes, raise the profile of the charity in the press and spread the word about the work we do through leaflets and cards.

If there's anyone out there who feels they'd like to get involved then do get in touch! Call Jaki on 971 801588 or email here.

Angela is back in the UK for a short time before heading over to Greece where she also heads up a cat charity. Once she returns I'll be back to provide more info on the numbers of cats helped during our November visit.

By the way - our photo at the top of the page is of Bertha a loving cat that patiently waits for her owners to return to the house were they left and abandoned her. She's a sweetie and although not a young cat has lots of love to give. If you know anyone who can give her a home do please let us know.

Getting Ready!

The bi-annual trip to Ibiza by care4cats needs a fair bit of organising and that's been taking up time over the last few weeks.
One of the important things we've managed to do is to produce leaflets printed in 3 languages (English, Spanish and German) so we can inform everyone on the island about the charitys work. Interestingly more and more Spanish residents are finding out about the charity which is good news as often they are feeding colonies of cats that keep on growing yet feel they have no where to turn for help.
care4cats are keen to work with anyone feeding cat colonies as we can be sure they're in a safe environment with regular food and someone looking out for them. Once these colonies are neutered we keep in touch with them so we can stay on top of any new cats that turn up, usually because they've been abandoned. This is a happy solution all round.

Ibiza is an island full of good hearted people who take the time to feed cat colonies out of their own pocket. It's a hard, and expensive job, and often they fall victim to other people who abandon their cats thinking 'ah someone is looking after them...so they're OK'.
One lady in San Antonio, Maria, has been feeding colonies of cats all around the town for 20 yrs or more and has never missed a day. Until a few years ago she had no way of controlling their numbers and has often suffered abuse by residents because they feel she encourages the cats to live in the town. Sadly people are totally ignorant and don't realise that cat colonies start by someone abandoning a domestic cat that is un-neutered.

So...we have lots of new cages to transport cats, plenty of newspapers to keep them comfy whilst in captivity, dried food, tins of meat and of course tuna...always a favourite for trapping difficult cats.

The team of regular volunteers from the UK and Es Cana are, this year, being helped by a small number of new residents which is great. And as they're all from the San Antonio side of the island then it means this area can really be concentrated on.
The announcement of the visit is in the newspaper and calls are coming in thick and fast...as always, it's going to be a busy time!

July Trip to Ibiza

In the heat of July Tracy, Debs, Angela and Jaki set about trapping and neutering as many cats in San Antonio as could be managed.
This 'extra' visit was all down to Tracy and Debs who had already visited the island in May.

Feeling that there was so much work left to do and fearing for many of the cats, they decided to use up the week they had off work in July to travel to Ibiza and continue to help the cats around San An.

Putting together the information from various sources, including their own from wandering the streets and noting the cats, they reckoned there were a good 8-10 colonies of cats in the town...all of varying sizes.
There were two main areas to concentrate on in the town and both had at least 8 or more cats in number. Some cats spotted in May also still needed to be caught. Some of the females had given birth to many more kittens that were running inbetween cars, others were already pregnant. It was a situation that was quite dire.

The other area was a derelict house were the cats had previously been homed by an old lady who had now died. They were being fed by someone...but had not been neutered. They were living in the garden of the house.

Finally the 'active' list also included cat colonies that Maria fed, a local contact. She had spotted new additions that needed to be trapped and spayed and at least one female had two small kittens one that had a bad infection of the eyes.

Overall it was hard work. Extremely hot weather, crowds of holidaymakers and 4am starts (when it was quieter and cooler) through to 10pm finishes.
However great work was done. All of the female cats caught and neutered were pregnant so more unwanted kittens were prevented from being born.
A number of kittens were rescued...some going to a new foster home; Kevin and his girlfriend had answered an advert in the Ibiza Sun and it was great to know we had somewhere to put 2 very poorly and scared kittens to be cared for before re-homing them.
Also a number of tom cats were spayed - one needed medical attention for a very bad case of mange.

Care4cats also got a call from Charlotte who had phoned on behalf of the lady that owned the stables where she stabled her horse. Maria had a number of cats abandoned on her property that all requiring neutering. Thankfully they were all caught and when they were released Maria donated €150 to the charity! Wonderful!

Charlotte also gave a home to a tiny kitten rescued from the derelict house and you can read about her story in the article below.

So a successful trip...but there's still so much more to do and a huge list of cats to work through. Care4cats are back outon the island in November when they'll pick up where they had to leave off.

None of this would have happened though without the drive and hardwork of Debs and Tracy.

Remember - if you think you could act as a fosterer or want to help the charity in some way then do get in touch!

Fabulous Fundraising!!

Care4cats are pleased to say that a marvellous €150 raised has been raised by the lovely people at The Old London Tavern in San Antonio bay.

Steve and Dave (with the help of Marlayn too) held a charity night that raised the much needed funds.

With their help it means another 6 cats can be spayed...so more happy street cats and less unwanted kittens.

We can't thank them enough for their efforts!

Well done everyone!