Where I am from, humans don’t term cats on the streets as ‘feral cats.’ The term ‘stray cats’ is used more widely to describe all the cats that roam the urban landscape.
I was a stray kitten born on the streets before I was adopted, and I used to hang out with my family members in a parking lot behind some eateries. We lived near a dumpster, and hung out underneath cars and inside drains. My biological father was killed in a car accident in the same parking lot we lived in.
Stray cat living at a cooked food market in a busy suburb
Commonly sighted: stray cats living under apartment blocks
Unfortunately, when too many humans are living together in a small area, sharing their space with stray cats, a lot of problems do occur. Cats get blamed for damage to vehicles since many strays live in parking lots. There is a lot of human litter everywhere — and the strays get blamed for dirtying human living spaces. Houses and apartment blocks are built very close to one to another, so caterwauling cats that are yet to be neutered cause noise pollution to a lot of humans at a go, since many live nearby enough to hear it all.
In some Asian countries, cats are simply caught and slaughtered by humans themselves to “solve the problem.” Where I’m from, humans call up government agencies who will send professionals to cull strays cats.
The good news is, there are TNR (trap, neuter, release) programs going on here too. My human parents formed a small cat rescue group that does that for my stray relatives, aided by higher humans in our Cat Welfare Society. There are also a lot of humans here who like stray cats a lot. They feed them, and enjoy taking pictures with them: Singapore strays have a photo blog cheekily called Cat Molester. So despite living amongst plenty of humans in a busy, urban Asian city like ours, my stray relatives do get some love.
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I think it’s like dat in a few European cities too – not all, but a few. We saw lots of kitties roaming the streets in Italy. Thank you for trying to do the best you can by starting a spay/neuter program Yes, overcrowding of oomans or anipals can create problems. Thanks for enlightening us on your country and stary anipals.
Great article! My Mum regularly goes to Hong Hong (which she loves) & often does cat rescues in Kowloon & HK Is. She visits the Cat Welfare Society & has found them helpful. So glad you are getting their name mentioned here! In general, although there are zillions of feral cats in HK, they are street-wise enough to keep themselves relatively guarded against people with bad intentions. Highly recommend every tourist who visits Hong Kong (& Singapore) to support the Cat Welfare Society! Without them, the street kittehs really have no-one on their side. Keep up your good work !! All Pals need more humans like these ones !! XXXX
BTW, Pepi Price is @PepiSmartDog. BOL !
Gr8 story, well done Sayang.
WeK from Sydney, Straylia.
Meow! Thanks for the paws-up on my article! Outdoor stray cats here always face human-complaints from cat-haters (why!? we be cute!) cos we have so many humans living together in small spaces. My biological siblings were caught by pest-control and sent OTRB with pokey-needle because humans complained about them
if I were still living in that parking lot, would be writing this from over the RB. Will share more about us Asian kitties in future articles!
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