Community Information: Cats
Condado TNR was set up in December 2015 by myself Caroline Jones to try and keep the feral cat population under control, we have had several successful years now of increased trapping and neutering and returning. This keeps the population down, and through the work we have done we have reduced the fertile population dramatically, this is evident by the reduced number of litters this year on Condado. There is a need for a feral cat population, this help to reduce the number of vermin that we encounter due to our location in the campo. We have always aimed to try and maintain a balanced population to keep the vermin at bay, whilst not overrunning the site with feral cats.
There are a significant number of kittens each year in the litters that are found, we have always tried to re -home these in the wider area, but these are neutered to stop them continuing breeding and therefore increasing the feral population. This has been very successful, with owners on site and the wider area of Costa Calida adopting the kittens into their homes.
We are a donation led organisation that relies 100% on the generosity of the owners on Condado donating items for sale or through cash donations. This money is then used to neuter the animals and ensure that they are healthy to be released. This in turn gives reassurance to the owners of cats on site that they are protected from their family pets being infected through the feral populations.
When we trap the cat’s, we have a process that works well, this starts by locating where the cats are, setting up trap feeding stations and then setting the traps once we have them returning each day for the food. It is a slow process but it is effective. This does mean that we must set up on the gardens the feeding stations and have worked with the previous administrators and the board of presidents over that last few years to address this in a cooperative manner. Once the cat has been trapped it is then taken away for neutering and testing to have them ready for release. We release them in the same location we pick them up to ensure they are familiar with where they are located. The feeding station is then removed and the cats can then find the permanent feeding stations that are set up well away from the gardens.
We hope to continue the work that we are doing as this is an on-going process, and the work we are putting in now and previously is starting to pay dividends. We have a massively reduced feral population, and we hope to continue this work. Whilst not all owners on site may be cat lovers, I am sure you can appreciate that the work that is being done is for the benefit of the whole resort and is being done in a humane manner that ensures that we have a healthy feral population for vermin control whilst not being overrun. If the work was to stop it would take less than 1 year for us to be back at square one due the nature of a fertile mother being able to produce multiple litters in a short period of time. Each of these litters unchecked can then go on and produce more and more litters. As you can appreciate this will then create a massive over run quite quickly. A kitten can be fully grown to fertile mum in as short a period as 4 months old.
I now have regular volunteers who feed the cats at the feeding stations every day. Some volunteers help when they are over on holiday!
If you are feeding any stray cats or kittens can you please inform me as soon as possible before they become pregnant and I can avoid this happening by catching them and having them neutered.
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