By Bejay Browne.
Tala cat park, home to hundreds of the island’s stray and unwanted cats, have issued an urgent appeal for help as they are in dire need of volunteers.
“We desperately need the public’s help as we are running on just a few volunteers, and we are running out of steam. Everyone wants our help, but we can’t continue without some help in return. With more and more cats and kittens being dumped and brought in on a daily basis and no extra help, we don’t know how we can carry on,” the cat park, a registered charity, said on social media.
All volunteers are welcome, from an hour a day or a full day at the park, any help would be greatly appreciated, they said.
“You only need to do jobs that you feel happy and comfortable with. It could be feeding the cats, prepping the food, helping to sweep the park, washing up, spring cleaning the cloisters or cleaning out the kitten rooms.”
The cat park suffered greatly during and after the lockdown. Many of those that helped during lockdown have had to return to work but an increasing number of kittens are being dumped or brought in, and the workload is increasing.
“It’s been a horrendous time at the park, and we are getting around five to 10 personal requests daily to take more cats in. We are having to turn these down due to idiots dumping their unwanted animals,” the group announced.
The cat park, which is a sanctuary for cats, has literately no more space left.
“We are having to put newly dumped kittens with ones we already have with good health as we have no spare quarantine pens. This puts all of them in danger as one infected kitten can pass it on to all of the rest.”
In one instance, shelter manager Dawn Foote was feeding kittens inside their pen, when a woman arrived with a cat carrier with kittens inside.
She told Foote that she had travelled from Limassol and had telephoned, and although the call wasn’t answered, she brought the kittens anyway, the charity said.
“Dawn tried to explain that we had no space available and if she could give her a few minutes to finish feeding she would speak to her, but instead, she opened the box, tipping the three kittens out onto the floor and walked off.”
A trap, neuter and return programme is also in place, to neuter feral cats that are causing a nuisance in the Paphos area. These cats are collected and trapped by a member of the charity’s team, neutered, vaccinated, treated for fleas, ticks and worms and then released.
Every day volunteers feed the cats 15kg of chicken mince, 36 tins of cat food, 30kg of biscuits and three rotisserie chickens.
Tala Cats has rehomed over 800 cats since they started, mostly in Cyprus, but also to the UK, Germany, Holland and the USA.
“We need your help. Please help us survive,” they said.
