February Visit

A lot of organisation has been underway for sometime for the February visit to Ibiza. This time the charity has a fab number of volunteers which is fantastic as it means the workload won't be as intense as it usually is.

For this visit we have planned to take the phone calls prior to arrival which should be a help to the trappers and also the callers. Normally the volunteers are trying to take phone calls whilst out trapping and then trying to schedule them in so this way it will enable the team to plan the jobs in advance at the sunday meeting.
Notification has gone in to the local paper and this time we have mentioned that we would like a minimum donation from callers. This is something which was discussed in November because the charity often traps cats for people who can afford to pay something, but pay either nothing or very little and of course that puts pressure on the finances. Every little helps! Particularly as we trap many cats that have no 'feeder'.
This time we want to concentrate on a large number of feral cat colonies that need attention in San Antonio and Lara, a new volunteer who lives in the area, is mapping out the colonies she has found whilst walking around the town. Another hot-bed for cat colonies seems to be Port d'es Torrent as already we have been notified of possible 30+ cats needing neutering; one lot are a colony of 15 living near a house where someone lived (rented) and then moved...but left the cats.
Let's hope the weather improves for the trapping week as so far its been grey, wet and miserable for the past couple of weeks!

How a stray cat can touch your heart...

It all started one day in March 1997. I walked every day to the Rio for exercise when suddenly around a bench was a slim, beautiful female calico cat who mewed and mewed. It suddenly struck me she was begging for food and I felt awful because I had nothing to give her. So the next afternoon, hoping I would see her again, I took a basket full of food and milk: and there she was, waiting for me. I’m sure she understood me when I promised to be back again the next day. After 3 or 4 days I decided to call her Minette and that's how a wonderful and very long love story started.

As the weeks went by I realized she was growing fatter and fatter; by mid April, there couldn't be any doubt: she was pregnant! Two weeks later, to my dismay, she vanished. I had grown attached to her so every day I returned sure she would reappear. Then in early May there she was; my Darling Minette. She was half dead with hunger and ate so fast the food was gone after only a few minutes. For more than a week things went on like that until I realised she’d had her kittens, but where was she hiding them?

Then one day she came along with a lovely white male cat with large blue eyes. Unfortunately I realized he was deaf and dumb. But this didn't stop him being so sweet to Minette and sticking close to her. I named him Arthur! I tried to follow her to find out where the kittens where being hidden, but she was too clever.

One day, she wasn't there as usual, so I started calling her and after a few minutes she came with a kitten in her mouth. How surprised and emotional I was that she now trusted me enough to introduce one of her babies: a teeny tiny little thing. Minette was so proud and that's how I found she was hiding 4 kittens in the gaps in the stone wall: 3 girls and a boy, the girls like the mother, the boy all grey and striped! Little by little they came out to play at the place! Sadly one of the little females vanished after only a few weeks. The 3 others were happily growing up though, coming every day with Mum and Dad. I baptized them: Joséphine, Pupuce, and Tiger.

When the kittens were 3 months old Minette and Arthur were neutered and ‘mum’ decided the kittens were old enough to fend for themselves. In November, getting worried about them spending winter outside, I was able to find, with the help of a German lady, a home for all the family in Germany. Minette and Arthur were more than happy to travel by air to Hamburg and their new home. The kids were something entirely different!After almost losing 3 fingers from my right hand and the left one savagely scratched I decided they just didn't want to leave me, the island or their home! And so they stayed, managing to survive the first winter and all the subsequent ones.
Pupuce died when she was 7 years old, the poor thing had a brain tumour and it really broke my heart when I had to take her to the vet to put her to sleep. Tiger, the little brother, was adopted by a Swiss couple and now lives with them, so this left only Joséphine...the lovely tri-coloured, green eyed, 13 years old Joséphine.

Michele Dussan

The Story of little Luna

Luna and her 3 brothers and sisters were born in my cactus patch to a feral cat I had thought was a male. Silly me! 2 were black, one was a white siamese like mum and the 3rd was calico (or tri-colour as they say here)

Only 3 survived because 'mum' insisted on moving them to the garden next door where there was a pond. We tried twice to move them back to our garden but to no avail. The innevitable happened - one of the kittens drowned. That probably saved the others as she moved them to our neighbours house across the road where his children started to feed and play with them.
All was well.
Children being children they got bored and the kittens were abandoned. So in August I had to start feeding kittens that had never been feral and had no idea how to get food.
The siamese kitten was always the bravest...he was first to the food and very easy to love. The calico (who we named tiny tilly after one of our own cats who was also calico) was quite sweet, but very shy. The little black one always nipped me! So with her it was a love/hate relationship!

Eventually they were old enough to have them neutered - phew, no more kittens! Over the weeks I also noticed the little black one was only nipping me because she wanted me to give her a stroke. Once she was being stroked she was in heaven. Even when I fed them she wanted love first and food second. She used to chase me down the street and only stop once I'd picked her up for a cuddle.
I named her Luna Meaning 'moon' in Spanish.

Her brother (siamese) had managed to be taken in by the neighbours across the road. Well he was the prettiest of them all. Little Luna and Tiny Tilly continued to be fed by me and I was desperate to re-home them both in Ibiza as I have too many cats already. Of course I failed.
Then Angela rang me from care4cats to say there was availability on a flight to Germany for the kittens. I couldn't believe it...they could both go together! Unfortunately it turned out only to be one place and I had the decision to make. I choose Luna because I knew she was deperate for love and attention and life on the street wouldn't suit her personality. So that was it. She was off - thanks to care4cats.

I took her to the vets to get her chipped and her passport arranged and then a month later I took her to the airport to meet her flight partner Monika. I was heartbroken at having to take her as I felt so disloyal, especially when she was sat in her basket en-route looking out at me with her paw on my hand. I nearly turned back from the aiport twice.
However I knew I couldn't give her a home and that this was her only chance.

Fast forward 3 days and she arrived in Germany to the wonderful Michael and Carmen who settled her in to their house and quickly found her a 'forever home'! FANTASTIC! 
So little Luna now has a life full of love and affection in Hamburg thanks to care4cats and their contacts in Hamburg Michael and Carmen.
Her sister, tiny Tilly is sits in my garden waiting and alone - but thanks to care4cats she is due to go in February.
Don't you just love a happy ending?

Brrrr!

Here in Ibiza we hear that the snow is thick on the ground in many places in the UK and across northern Europe too!
The winter has definitely arrived here as well and we're suffering with grey damp weather and it hasn't stopped raining or days!
Today it is 9 degrees and it's tippling it down...the mist has come in and the mountains have all but disappeared!
Tonight its set to be a cold one...so we hope where ever you are you're managing to stay warm and cosy!

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!