Our Day To Day Work In Samos
We have four main areas of activity in our day to day work:
* Sterilising of street cats, both male and female
* Wintertime feeding of street cats
* Helping street cats that need emergency help and medical care
* Arranging adoptions of suitable street cats, recovery cats and orphans to new homes
* Sterilising of street cats, both male and female
* Wintertime feeding of street cats
* Helping street cats that need emergency help and medical care
* Arranging adoptions of suitable street cats, recovery cats and orphans to new homes
Sterilising Of Street Cats
Our biggest work continues to be, and always will be, a programme of sterilising street cats in Samos.
We do this using the two local vets and also overseas vets that visit Samos (with our organising). We are fortunate that the local vet in Samos Town lets us use his practice for the work of visiting vets which we think is almost unique in Greece. Generally Greek vets are quite reluctant to support charities for street cats (for many reasons) but we feel very lucky to be able to work with a vet that really supports our work 100%. We hope that this continues into the future.
In 2013, we sterilised over 400 street cats in Samos which is amazing! We have a big project once a year
with two vets who visit Samos from the UK – in October 2013 we sterilised 199 street cats in a five day programme with many supporting volunteers helping to catch, care and release cats that needed sterilising.
Like other charities in Greece, we make sure that the vets“clip” the left ear of street cats that have been sterilised. This “mark” is very important so our volunteers know which cats have been operated and there is no risk of catching them again and wasting vet time and giving the cat undue stress. There are many many “clipped” ears in
Samos which makes us happy.
Outside of of big yearly project, we undertake as many weekend sterilisations as we can, as as donations allow, again using the local and visiting vets. This is good for our volunteers as big projects can be very tiring and stressful – we have found that small projects are easier to manage and undertake.
Also during 2013, we invested in new equipment for sterilising projects from new professional trap cages, to cages for handing wild cats and transfer to vets. This has proved very successful, and we have been able to catch even the most wild and angry of street cats without giving them too much stress or harm. We hope to continue our investment programme as future donations allow.
A key part of any project is to make sure that street cats suffer no injury, harm or stress. We work hard to make sure that cats are released back to exactly the same location from where they are caught. We do this with a system of tags and labels on the trap cage right through to the release of cats. Equally, we try to make sure that “nursing” mothers (those with kittens still feeding) are returned back to their location as quickly as possible. Generally, we return male cats within 12 hours and females the following day.
Sadly, we still have a very small minority of local people that do not support sterilising street cats, especially in small villages (which is the root cause for why there are so many street cats), but the vast majority of local people now really want us to work in all parts of the island and we get daily requests to “go here” and “go there” for street cat sterilising – we would love to be able to sterilise more and more street cats, but we can only do our work as donations allow. Where we do face opposition, we try to explain the benefits of sterilising street cats – there are many myths and tales about cats in Greece and how they should be allowed to live and breed, many of which are totally unfounded and untrue. We work hard to explain to local people that sterilised cats do hunt and seek wildlife, as often it is thought that Samos will be full of fat, lazy cats and the island will be over-run with mice and rats!
Sterilising will remain our biggest priority in the years to come.
We do this using the two local vets and also overseas vets that visit Samos (with our organising). We are fortunate that the local vet in Samos Town lets us use his practice for the work of visiting vets which we think is almost unique in Greece. Generally Greek vets are quite reluctant to support charities for street cats (for many reasons) but we feel very lucky to be able to work with a vet that really supports our work 100%. We hope that this continues into the future.
In 2013, we sterilised over 400 street cats in Samos which is amazing! We have a big project once a year
with two vets who visit Samos from the UK – in October 2013 we sterilised 199 street cats in a five day programme with many supporting volunteers helping to catch, care and release cats that needed sterilising.
Like other charities in Greece, we make sure that the vets“clip” the left ear of street cats that have been sterilised. This “mark” is very important so our volunteers know which cats have been operated and there is no risk of catching them again and wasting vet time and giving the cat undue stress. There are many many “clipped” ears in
Samos which makes us happy.
Outside of of big yearly project, we undertake as many weekend sterilisations as we can, as as donations allow, again using the local and visiting vets. This is good for our volunteers as big projects can be very tiring and stressful – we have found that small projects are easier to manage and undertake.
Also during 2013, we invested in new equipment for sterilising projects from new professional trap cages, to cages for handing wild cats and transfer to vets. This has proved very successful, and we have been able to catch even the most wild and angry of street cats without giving them too much stress or harm. We hope to continue our investment programme as future donations allow.
A key part of any project is to make sure that street cats suffer no injury, harm or stress. We work hard to make sure that cats are released back to exactly the same location from where they are caught. We do this with a system of tags and labels on the trap cage right through to the release of cats. Equally, we try to make sure that “nursing” mothers (those with kittens still feeding) are returned back to their location as quickly as possible. Generally, we return male cats within 12 hours and females the following day.
Sadly, we still have a very small minority of local people that do not support sterilising street cats, especially in small villages (which is the root cause for why there are so many street cats), but the vast majority of local people now really want us to work in all parts of the island and we get daily requests to “go here” and “go there” for street cat sterilising – we would love to be able to sterilise more and more street cats, but we can only do our work as donations allow. Where we do face opposition, we try to explain the benefits of sterilising street cats – there are many myths and tales about cats in Greece and how they should be allowed to live and breed, many of which are totally unfounded and untrue. We work hard to explain to local people that sterilised cats do hunt and seek wildlife, as often it is thought that Samos will be full of fat, lazy cats and the island will be over-run with mice and rats!
Sterilising will remain our biggest priority in the years to come.
Wintertime Feeding Of Street Cats
Once, the charter flights end from Samos in the beginning of October, life in Samos slows completely and most restaurants and hotels close for the wintertime. Many busy resorts (like Kokkari) become like a ghost town and this is a big shock to the street cats who suddenly find they have no access to regular food.
Whilst there are some local people that do feed cats in the villages, these are very few, and street cats will normally go looking for food scraps in the waste bins. Of course, this is not a good diet for cats and often they will be hungry enough to eat anything they find. We have seen cats eating the most awful of things, and it is not surprising that some older street cats die young from kidney and digestion problems.
Whilst we as a charity cannot possibly feed every cat that live on the streets in Samos, we try hard to feed as often as we can, in as many places as we can. We do this using food donated from our “Wish List” with Amazon.co.uk which has been very successful over the last year. Our supporters who know or find our Wish List on line are able to buy cat food and other items we really need, pay for them and have the items delivered to us. Much of the food on Amazon is much better value and quality than we can find locally in Samos, so it is a perfect arrangement for us and the cats.
We also have many direct donations of food from supporters who send us cat food parcels to help our wintertime feeding. We too organise our own deliveries of food that we have donated in Holland and Belgium – normally
once a year, we try to send food from our base in Holland to our volunteers in Samos. Our volunteers then do their best to distribute the food around the towns, villages and quiet seaside resorts where there are many hungry
cats. Luckily, we have a number of people that help us now.
During the Christmas and New Year days of 2013, we cooked Turkey for some lucky street cats and giving them a festive meal to enjoy.
Whilst there are some local people that do feed cats in the villages, these are very few, and street cats will normally go looking for food scraps in the waste bins. Of course, this is not a good diet for cats and often they will be hungry enough to eat anything they find. We have seen cats eating the most awful of things, and it is not surprising that some older street cats die young from kidney and digestion problems.
Whilst we as a charity cannot possibly feed every cat that live on the streets in Samos, we try hard to feed as often as we can, in as many places as we can. We do this using food donated from our “Wish List” with Amazon.co.uk which has been very successful over the last year. Our supporters who know or find our Wish List on line are able to buy cat food and other items we really need, pay for them and have the items delivered to us. Much of the food on Amazon is much better value and quality than we can find locally in Samos, so it is a perfect arrangement for us and the cats.
We also have many direct donations of food from supporters who send us cat food parcels to help our wintertime feeding. We too organise our own deliveries of food that we have donated in Holland and Belgium – normally
once a year, we try to send food from our base in Holland to our volunteers in Samos. Our volunteers then do their best to distribute the food around the towns, villages and quiet seaside resorts where there are many hungry
cats. Luckily, we have a number of people that help us now.
During the Christmas and New Year days of 2013, we cooked Turkey for some lucky street cats and giving them a festive meal to enjoy.
Helping Street Cats That Need Emergency Help And Medical Care
We always support a view that putting a cat to sleep if it is sick should only be the last option – luckily our local vets try to help us, and we have successfully nursed many sick cats back to health which is very rewarding. Those cats we have decided to “make sleep”(very few) are those that have been poisoned (although illegal, it still happens in some villages), road or other serious accidents or serious untreatable infectious diseases.
Our long term goal is to set up a complete cat shelter in Samos, with a team of local volunteers, 365 days a year. We have learned a lot from running our activities to date, and we know many of the requirements that a bigger shelter will need facilities such as quarantine, hospital room, kitchen, cleaning facilities, kitten room and good storage plus the big issues like sufficient funding and volunteer services. We hope one day that Samos will have a Greek Cat Rescue Cat Shelter that can help so many more sick, injured and orphan kittens and send many to new forever homes.
We are lucky that we have been able to learn much during 2013 and we now keep a good supply of day to day medicines for the most common of cat illness and sickness. Our volunteers have really help save many lives. Serious conditions are of course referred to the local vets and we take advice of treatments but knowing what
treatments are needed for simple problems like colds, flu, mouth infections, wounds helps us to work quickly and not to take up valuable vet time.
Some of the photos above are the cats that have been in our care during 2013.
Our long term goal is to set up a complete cat shelter in Samos, with a team of local volunteers, 365 days a year. We have learned a lot from running our activities to date, and we know many of the requirements that a bigger shelter will need facilities such as quarantine, hospital room, kitchen, cleaning facilities, kitten room and good storage plus the big issues like sufficient funding and volunteer services. We hope one day that Samos will have a Greek Cat Rescue Cat Shelter that can help so many more sick, injured and orphan kittens and send many to new forever homes.
We are lucky that we have been able to learn much during 2013 and we now keep a good supply of day to day medicines for the most common of cat illness and sickness. Our volunteers have really help save many lives. Serious conditions are of course referred to the local vets and we take advice of treatments but knowing what
treatments are needed for simple problems like colds, flu, mouth infections, wounds helps us to work quickly and not to take up valuable vet time.
Some of the photos above are the cats that have been in our care during 2013.
Adoptions
During 2013, we arranged 43 adoptions of Samos cats and kittens to new homes in Europe, finding new forever love in Germany, Holland, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden and Finland. This was our busiest every year for adoptions and in 2014, based on what we have learned in 2013, we will try to find the best homes with loving owners and a happy ever after ending. In addition, around 28 cats and kittens were rehomed in Samos.
We have learnt that some vets, in some countries, do have a negative view towards rescue cats from Greece and southern Europe, and assume that they will be full of disease and infection. This is really sad as we always
try to make sure that cats that we send to new homes are healthy, but we cannot always know the reaction of local vets when the cats reach their new homes. We will work hard during 2014 to make sure and discuss with new owners that local vets will take a positive view to rescue cats.
99% of the adoptions went well and many of the Samos cats now living in new homes are enjoying a life changing future, with warm beds, love, food and access to good vet services. We see many photos of the adoption cats in their new homes and this gives great pleasure of a job well done. We have known many since young kittens (two were even born in our care) and it is lovely to see them happy and well in forever homes.
We also work hard to find local homes in Samos with genuine cat lovers, but not to homes that will not care for the cats and give them the best opportunities in life. We refuse to home cats when the request for “cats to catch mice and hunt only” – we are happy that cats rehomed in Samos are in good loving forever homes.
We have learnt that some vets, in some countries, do have a negative view towards rescue cats from Greece and southern Europe, and assume that they will be full of disease and infection. This is really sad as we always
try to make sure that cats that we send to new homes are healthy, but we cannot always know the reaction of local vets when the cats reach their new homes. We will work hard during 2014 to make sure and discuss with new owners that local vets will take a positive view to rescue cats.
99% of the adoptions went well and many of the Samos cats now living in new homes are enjoying a life changing future, with warm beds, love, food and access to good vet services. We see many photos of the adoption cats in their new homes and this gives great pleasure of a job well done. We have known many since young kittens (two were even born in our care) and it is lovely to see them happy and well in forever homes.
We also work hard to find local homes in Samos with genuine cat lovers, but not to homes that will not care for the cats and give them the best opportunities in life. We refuse to home cats when the request for “cats to catch mice and hunt only” – we are happy that cats rehomed in Samos are in good loving forever homes.