cat welfare 2010

We created the problem. Why should they have to pay for it with their lives?

The burden of stemming the tide of destruction largely falls to cat caregivers – regular people with a big heart.

MEDIA RELEASE
Singapore, 10 February 2010 | For Immediate Release

The proliferation of stray animals in our communities is a human-created problem. They are here as a direct result of human-driven activities – a thriving live pet trade, irresponsible breeding and pet abandonment. As we enter the year of the Tiger, animal welfare agencies and organisations have a big concern - the number of animals that are going to be cleaned out with the trash during spring cleaning. This trend is mirrored in more than one turning of the year on a multi-cultural calendar – Hari Raya and New Year’s Day. And we are already seeing it happen with the next Chinese New Year around the corner.

On January 30 2010, 8 cats were abandoned in their filthy, rusty cages. When community cat caregivers received the tip-off, only 2 very frightened cats remained. The rest had gone to hide in the drains. Our experience with home cats that have been abandoned is that they have very little chance of survival. Some stay put in their hiding spot refusing food until they waste completely away.



Cat caregivers are those who sterilise and manage their community cats and work closely with the Town Council to resolve cat-related issues. They are volunteers who give of their own time and resources to care for the welfare of community cats.

The current measures in addressing the problem of stray cat proliferation includes

Pet Cat Ownership
* Improving standards and practices of pet shops by the Agri-food & Veterinary Authority (AVA)
* Education and awareness campaigns on responsible pet ownership by government agencies and animal welfare organisations
* Banning cats from public housing by the Housing & Development Board (HDB) (therefore pet cat abandonment is not a crime)
* Face-to-face mediation with cat owners, sterilisation assistance and rescue efforts by cat caregivers with the support of the Cat Welfare Society and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA)

Stray or Abandoned Cats
* Sterilisation of community cats by cat caregivers with the support of SPCA and the Cat Welfare Society. Approx. 4200 sterilised through the support of the Cat Welfare Society and SPCA in 2008.
* Boarding at overtaxed animal shelters in Singapore
* Surrendering of animals and destruction at the Society for the Prevention of the Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) – Approx. 4500 surrendered in 2008
* Impounding and destruction by the - AVA Approx. 3500 culled in 2008

And still we had to put down 8000 cats last year. An average of 10,000 cats has been put down every year for the last 10 years.



The current measures put the considerable burden of addressing the problem of irresponsible cat owners squarely on cat caregivers. They also offer irresponsible cat owners an easy way out by abandoning and surrendering without consequences. The number of cats destroyed is gradually coming down, but the burden on cat caregivers continue year after year. The decreasing numbers is also a testimony to their efforts.

Many cat owners are driven to keep cats to save them from the streets, pest control and abuse. The percentage of people with local cats picked from the streets far outweighs the ones with pedigrees. Not regulating ownership not only penalises responsible owners who help keep cats off our streets, it puts irresponsible owners out of reach of the long arm of enforcement. Currently, government action against cat owners is confined in large degree to eviction. The pet cats then often join the community cats on the street.

Addressing the problem of irresponsible supply and demand, breeding and abandoning of pets has to come from a direct and concerted effort by government agencies, animal welfare organisations and the community of concerned citizens and pet owners, through legislation and enforcement, awareness and education and community peer pressure.

It is our aim at the Cat Welfare Society to support this steadfast and devoted community. We are celebrating their labours, the spirit and their compassion at the Tiger Show.

More information about the event at www.catwelfare.org.

leukemia's back

after a couple of sluggish, embarrassing and ultimately failed attempts at using the cat traps leading up to the many festive distractions of december, woman completely forgets about her resolution to sterilise the community cats until today when in a fit of activity, she nabs 2 cats on the way back from late night shopping at mustafa. so leukemia is back. and a never before seen cat with a warped Escherisque tail, bent in 2 places to resemble a Penrose triangle.

the cats are quarantined in the toilet and that makes us one animal too many in our 7 residents, 7 squatters 2006 household census. and the woman is going on about how Escherisque tail is rare for a domestic short-hair, luxurious and soft to the touch. eh, don't get any funny ideas lady, one more resident and we are officially slumming.

i am in a mood today. letters to Town Council about potential animal abuse have come to naught. 2 times already, a certain politician comes back with standard replies on necessity of animal control and no feeding and allowing stray cats in our estates. excuse me, i am asking you what is being done about cleaners taking their own initiative to kill the cats by whatever means available to them. witnessed practices: poisoning of cats and bagging kittens alive and throwing them in the trash. he skirted the issue completely in his first reply, and only on further insistence does he say they will instruct cleaners accordingly.

that is an appalling lack of reading comprehension or respect. so estate beauty more important than value of life, is it? feedback on potential animal abuse case becomes another avenue for them to read residents their riot act.

this makes me more inflamed about their ridiculous stance on not allowing stray cats in our community, he says we need to take into consideration of others living in the community. HDB and Town Council have received many complaints on stray nuisance and we need to remove strays.

what about people who value the lives of strays animals and want to see them well taken care of? don't they have a voice in the community that also requires action from the authorities?

to be in keeping with the stray policy, it requires in most circumstances for people who care to consciously walk away from animals in destitute or distress. that's asking them to give up a part of who they are. Compassion and social conscience are not attributes that can be turned on for politically correct causes and off for unpopular ones. you want to promote volunteerism and philanthropy in Singapore, here's your citizens, auntie and uncle giving of own time and money everyday, others trapping and neutering, still others rehoming. but what the authorities are saying is sorry hoh, only for the causes we like, ok? no wonder so many disillusioned, complacent, indifferent people here.

if you are as inflamed as i am, give a shout to your Town Councils today: set guidelines, not DEADlines.

cats don't belong here

the woman is told that cats are not allowed as pets in hdb.

she remembers reading something like this on an expat website and presumes it misinformed as it sounds ridiculous. she even laughed at the misconceptions ang mohs have about tight-assed singapore. but now she hears it from the officer at the town council.

the woman is calling town council about the people who came round to investigate the complaints about stray cats. she wants to know what they do with the animals that are rounded up if it ever comes to that. the officer is sympathetic enough. it is the town council's job to investigate complaints but it is a grim detestable job rounding up cats and they rather not have to do it. so they hope crusading cat-loving people like the woman will clean up after the cats, sterilise them and keep them out of the way of crabby cat haters.

i wonder if people appreciate the irony here. so hdb cat lovers gets to own all the responsibilities but not the pet. so when is a cat a pet? i would assume if you feed it, care for it, it is a pet. presume they mean to draw the line at keeping us as indoor pets. the reason being, cats cannot be kept indoors, they tend to roam and cause nuisance to residents. so the solution is to keep them all outdoors and roaming. i'd like to pick that brain.

Streats Cat Welfare Society Asia Homes Wild Singapore

i am a cat illegally kept in a 3-rm hdb and have no power or influence whatsoever on anyone about this mind-bloggling policy. in fact, as a cat, i have a case against myself as an easy pet to keep. La Idler is much too kind to say that after spaying (sterlising) we don't go for walks, caterwaul and we don't drool. period. well s/he hasn't met me, and i have been spayed twice.

if we sneak into your house uninvited, caterwaul, fight, give you the evil eye, please remember that we are just being our god-given selves. if we are particularly errant, please remember that even for humans, a neglected life makes anyone a little paranoid and a little desperate.

i have a great home and am well fed, but i am not dead. i don't do many of the things that strays do but i have a natural curiosity and i protect my territory because after all i am a cat. i drool because i am old and can't always control my facial muscles.

fromhell strikes the right note. you build the city the way you want and we are stranded in it. cats have no natural habitat. star tortoise can at least claim the indian semi-desert or forest as their rightful home. so if you must blame someone for our detestable existence, blame the eqyptians for domesticating us back in 4000BC.

or the people who dump their pets on the streets. especially them.

i never thanked the uncles and aunties enough for leaving food out for strays those long days i spent on the streets. they help keep us sane. i remember an auntie getting an earful from this guy who claims that she is attracting more and more cats into the neighbourhood and thus more noise/mess/trouble.

if i had the words i would tell him that if auntie did not feed us, we would not quietly go away because cats have all available urban territories covered. there are 80,000 of us out there. we will be hunting, scavenging and fighting for survival and that is much more trouble than he can imagine. worse, more of us get diseased.

of course, many cat haters would like to see us rounded up and culled. i say culled because what are the chances that we are claimed or adopted? even if there are irresistable cats in our demographics and gene pool, hdb rules out 86% of the population as potential adopters. thankfully, culling is a danger word in the govt's vocabulary. the govt been there done that during sars and was rewarded with scathing local and international press for an uncompassionate, unprogressive singapore. Sydney Morning Herald Singapore Veterinary Association CatSite.com

but the woman remains paranoid that there might be discreet ways of getting rid of cats because no one keeps track of us.

she can't understand how someone can love their families and not have compassion for the rest of humankind. how they can love their kids without an ounce of sympathy for living breathing animal life. love is compassion and empathy. if you can extend to one why not to all. of course, humans are limited and naturally selective and can spread their love only in varying degrees. but an about-turn calls into question the quality of the way the person loves. it tells you the person expects returns on their love and so it is bestowed only on those that directly benefit their lives.

another sterling example of Singapore's apathy towards animals Singapore Govt Strikes Again Noah’s Ark Natural Animal Sanctuary (NANAS) now resides in Pekan Nanas, Johor.