Sterilisation is the only solution to animal welfare in Cyprus

I would like to respond to the letter Sunday Mail November 7 headed ‘Feral cats may look cute but they can be serious health hazard’

The writer asks the public not to put food down in the streets for wild cats but to take them to their home and feed them. To get a feral cat into your home would be impossible.  From birth if they have no contact with humans they will remain feral for the rest of their lives. The feral cats who live in the hills of the countryside will live and survive their lives out there without the need for humans, unlike dogs who cannot survive on their own.

The answer is to sterilise all animals when they are old enough to be sterilised and that is the only solution and one which is carried out in many civilised countries around the world.  In Cyprus it is not recognised by the government and municipalities and therefore most of the public have no knowledge of it.  There are many who support humane trapping, for instance all the shelters, but the country needs education on the subject and that can only come from the government.

Any person who owns an animal  should be responsible for ensuring the animal is treated by a vet regularly to prevent it from housing parasites such as fleas and mites, and therefore is unable to pass parasites to other animals.  I have never heard of cats passing any illnesses to human beings and suggest the writer tunes in to the programme Vets in Practice and watch the vets operating on cats with their bare hands with no evidence of gloves in sight!

 

Name and address withheld, Larnaca

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.