Despite ancient cat connections, Cyprus is swamped with strays

[Paphos Life]

Every day at dawn, as Dinos Ayiomamitis' small truck slowly navigates the pathway of a cemetery, cats quietly emerge from among the surrounding tombstones. "Here you go, Bourekka mou," he murmurs using a Cypriot term of endearment, as the animals circle his legs and wait for him to scoop food from the back of his pickup for them to eat....

Read the article and chat about it below...

[Devil]

Every day at dawn, as Dinos Ayiomamitis' small truck slowly navigates the pathway of a cemetery, cats quietly emerge from among the surrounding tombstones. "Here you go, Bourekka mou," he murmurs using a Cypriot term of endearment, as the animals circle his legs and wait for him to scoop food from the back of his pickup for them to eat....

Read the article and chat about it below...

If the cats have become a plague, then they should be treated like coronavirus, in other words, vaccinate them with a 0.22 sniper rifle bullets in the hands of a trained man. An excess of cats is almost entirely to blame for a few specific diseases which can affect humans. It is incredible how many of these strays and feral beasts are actually fed by "sympathetic" people, not realising that they are weaving a noose for their own neck. I am not against cats in particular but there is a limit on the grounds of public health.

[trevnhil]

Re "An excess of cats is almost entirely to blame for a few specific diseases which can affect humans"
What are these Diseases?

[WHL]

We have a cat, but people feeding feral cats are only adding to the problems.

[Dominic]

I've never understood the feeding of feral cars either. It's like people feeding foxes in the UK.

[lotus]

You are a miserable bugger Devil,I agree there are too many cats here but if people acted responsibly and had them neutered then the cat population would be manageable,to many people cats are a comfort and a companion,as for shooting strays because of the health risk you could say the same about the bloody humans not acting responsibly and spreading covid,let's shoot them shall we? They are putting people at far more risk than any poor cat!

[Kili01]

Something radical needs to be done to decrease the huge numbers of ferals.
Maybe it should become illegal to feed large numbers of street cats, plus use of cat traps to remove some from the streets and other means.

Although people will say that 'people should act responsibly'' it's pretty obvious that unfortunately many don't. Even though we have few tourists around who might feed them, the problem of these strays hasn't gone away

Dee

[galexinda]

The feral cats in our area only have access to fresh water and we can watch them 'hunting' in the empty plot in front of the complex.
In other complexes we have stayed in tourists were told not to feed the cats - no one would look after them after they left.
A huge difference between a pet cat, a feral cat and the thousands of outdoor cats that are fed every day - the equivalent of living on benefits!

[Galini]

Trap, Neuter and Release back to the area they were taken from is the only effective population control which has been proven over and over again all over the world.

Feeding the cats to keep them healthy and stop them having to scavenge the bins for the leftover food we discard by the tons each year is perfectly acceptable in my book PROVIDED the person feeding also makes sure that they are neutered

And for the people who think that cats who are fed do not hunt, this is incorrect. BEING overfed to the point where they are fat and lazy, maybe. But this is a problem with the human, not the cats.

IF anyone managed to make an area cat-free I am 100% certain that the next big complaint would be that there are too many mice, rats, snakes, cockroaches etc

I am not even going to make a comment about Devils suggestion

[Chaddy]

Re "An excess of cats is almost entirely to blame for a few specific diseases which can affect humans"
What are these Diseases?

Ringworm,roundworm,toxoplasmosis,campylobactor,salmonella,giardia......albiet these are not new.

[Chaddy]

I,m not going off subject( i,ll come to it later )but does anyone know about Rorke,s drift?

[The Aquila]

I can’t believe a mouse is sticking up for cats.

[WHL]

Country's like Australia have had cat culls, so if the problem keeps increasing, then it might be inevitable

[Devil]

Trap, Neuter and Release back to the area they were taken from is the only effective population control which has been proven over and over again all over the world.

Have you the slightest idea how much it costs to neuter a cat especially a female? To do it systematically on every feral cat would cost about the same as the defence budget for the year! And please expand "proven over and over again all over the world". I request the name of every country that is done this.

You are a miserable bugger Devil,I agree there are too many cats here but if people acted responsibly and had them neutered then the cat population would be manageable

To neuter a feral cat, apart from the financial side, would be very amusing to watch how to catch it. Feral does not mean stray.

[Devil]

Devil do you think we should shoot homo sapiens which have reached plague proportions in some areas ? Sauce for the goose ,,,,,,,,,
GALINI a number of good points made.

Excellent idea! Let's start with all the politicians and other public parasites!

[Galini]

Trap, Neuter and Release back to the area they were taken from is the only effective population control which has been proven over and over again all over the world.

Have you the slightest idea how much it costs to neuter a cat especially a female? To do it systematically on every feral cat would cost about the same as the defence budget for the year! And please expand "proven over and over again all over the world". I request the name of every country that is done this.

You are a miserable bugger Devil,I agree there are too many cats here but if people acted responsibly and had them neutered then the cat population would be manageable

To neuter a feral cat, apart from the financial side, would be very amusing to watch how to catch it. Feral does not mean stray.

The easiest place to look to answer your first question Devil is Wikipedia - try this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap%E2%8 ... 0%93return

As for the financiall cost, yes I agree it is expensive but the cost to any government for professional snipers as you suggest would FAR outweigh the cost to provide cheap or free neutering

I spend a LOT of my time catching feral cats for neutering so you are welcome to come with me any time to see how it is done

Galini (aka Sue)

[WHL]

Snipers shooting cats will never happen, the outcry from animal organizations will be loud, people calling for Cyprus to be boycotted etc etc, what would work is traps and humane disposal, have the authorities got the stomach for doing this, in a word no.

[lotus]

While we're on the subject what about all the stray abandoned dogs?

[WHL]

While we're on the subject what about all the stray abandoned dogs?

I dont think the subject of stray dogs comes anywhere close, to the amount of stray cats.

[Devil]

While we're on the subject what about all the stray abandoned dogs?

This is comparatively a minor problem but I agree that it exists mainly because hunters chuck out dogs a) because the dogs perform badly and b) because it's the end of the season and the dogs become useless but still need to eat. As a poor guess, I would hazard that there are at least 100 cats for each dog. Dogs do not usually survive because they need to hunt in packs and it's rare for feral dogs to say hello to others. A chalk and cheese situation: