Why Should Cat Colonies Be Controlled?
This may sound positive: despite the fact that their owners rejected them, these animals managed to find a place in the city. However, feline colonies are a source of illness for cats and other animals as well.
Feline colonies and diseases
There are many diseases that cats transmit to each other, especially among members of feline colonies, since they are generally not vaccinated and live in precarious hygienic conditions.
Some of these diseases, such as calicivirus, feline immunodeficiency, feline leukemia and infectious peritonitis, are very contagious and can kill the animal.
In addition, they can also transmit diseases to people, such as rabies. That’s why they’re a very important public health issue.
Cat colonies & wildlife
Strangely, feline colonies are closely related to wildlife. A clear example is the problem of the urban wild boar, which is attracted to cities by the food that is left in feline colonies.
But don’t they have the right to eat? The truth is, yes, but it is vital that if you are concerned about feeding a feline colony that you do so hygienically: use two or three bowls of cat food to avoid conflicts, put little food and remove it before the dusk.
How to help cat colonies?
In addition to feeding these cats correctly, without attracting wild animals, there are other ways to control and help colonies.
For years, some have proposed to poison and kill these animals, which is violence punishable by law. However, capture, sterilization and release protocols are the perfect solution.
Thus, animal protectors and veterinarians play an important role, since the objective is to perform the neutering of these animals and also to give the relevant vaccines.
These animals are often difficult to adopt once they have gone wild, so they are released again. Without the possibility of reproduction, feline colonies will not increase.
These colonies often form because of abandonment. As much as these animals stop reproducing, if we continually abandon cats, there will be no worthwhile solution.
That’s why we must be aware that we are responsible for our pets and, above all, choose responsible adoption over compulsive buying of purebred animals.
