Fund Raising

1. Shop                                      

   Amigos dos Gatos do Algarve has a Charity Shop (Montechoro, Albufeira) which is open 7 days per week, selling donated items.                                                            

1.  

2. Fund raising events – London area   

   Debbie Humphreys who runs a ``Cat Rescue`` Branch in England, sends AGA regular

        cheques from events such as Car Boot Sales and Quiz nights.

   3.  Municipality of Albufeira                            

AGA receives a small subsidy from the local council. The subsidy was 500€ in 2010.

The council are kept informed about AGA's neutering activities and future plans.

   4.  International Animal Welfare Organisations        

        Between 2000 and 2010 the following organisations have made occasional grants towards.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                             



        AGA's feral cat neutering programme:

 

• * I. RSPCA (Mid-Sussex and Brighton Branch)www.rspca.org.uk

• * II. RSPCA (East London)www.rspca.org.uk

• * III. Jean Sainsbury Animal Welfare Trust www.jeansainsburyanimalwelfare.org.uk

• * IV. Jeanne Marchig Animal Welfare Trust www.marchigtrust.org

• * V. Stichting Galgo International www.stichting-galgo.nl

• * VI. Conservative Animal Welfare Group (UK) cawg.org.uk

   5.   ``Friends of "Amigos dos Gatos"

 ``The Friends`` was recently set up with the hope of raising funds for more neutering of feral cats. New ``friends`` and feral cat adoptions will help to expand our activities.

* Please support our ``Friendship`` scheme.

 

   6.                                                          

         If you want to order, then send 5.00 euros (because postage) with your name and address to:
         Lia van der Meijde
         Apartado 872
         8200-911Albufeira
         PORTUGAL
         and it is getting sent as soon as possible

Practical help with neutering

Apart from some local Vet's, who neuter cats for us as discount prices, (around 55 Euros to

neuter a female cat and around 40 Euros for a male) we have help from Vets, Nurses and

Cat-Trappers from the U.K.

From 2002 – 2007, twice-yearly neutering trips were organised by ``Kismet-Account´´.

´´Worldwide Veterinary Service´´ *(www.wvs.org.uk). We had occasional help from WVS since that date. We certainly have plenty of feral cats

here to neuter and we will definitely not find ourselves short of work!

Vets without frontiers

Vets and nurses from the Worldwide Veterinary Service travel from far away countries at their own expense to perform charity work for the many animal organisations around the world.

The problem of street and feral cats is minimised by the philanthropic work of vets and nurses who offer their expertise to help keep the proliferation of street cats who live in colonies around us under control. Thanks to the animal shelters (most of them run by brave and caring women), the problem seems non-existent and sometimes overlooked in the Algarve.

We were invited to observe where the operations occur in a villa generously lent by the owner, Marion Moore, which was temporarily transformed into a surgery assemble line. The people who put together these campaigns are Lesley Normington (Founder of “Amigos dos Gatos do Algarve”), Lynn Pedro, Lionel Jacobs, Judy McKean (who invited us), Marian Moore, and animal organization “Amigos dos Gatos do Algarve” through which the veterinarian volunteers from the Worldwide Veterinary Service came to perform the operations on this particular campaign. During the year, neutering also takes place, but without the help of these kind volunteers, it becomes very expensive and money is something that evades these animal protection groups.

Veterinary Dr. James Forbes, Vet Nurse Tracy Hewitt and Vet Assistant Kevin Meehan, worked non-stop neutering a total of 132 cats in 6 days. Almost all cats were captured in the Albufeira and Rocha Brava area. Cats can be found everywhere, in rural and populated areas, behind and alongside buildings, on rooftops, in trees, under cars, in hospitals, and even perched on air conditioning units on the sides of buildings. The local people, some of which kindly feed the street cats, are advised beforehand of the dates of the neutering campaigns for easy identification of the areas. Lynn, Judy and Kevin placed the cages/traps after dark in strategic places where colonies of feral/street cats inhabit. Early next morning, each cage was collected, immediately identified on a form placed on the front of each cage where they register the area where the animal was trapped, any particular information and presumed sex (the cat’s sex was only confirmed after sedation). Cat trapping was also done manually during the day by Kevin and Lynn. Feral or street cats are the offspring of tamed animals that belonged to somebody and can be elusive, do not easily trust humans, and are difficult to capture (Kevin proudly showed us a rather impressive cut on his finger made by one of the frightened cats).

The cages were then brought to the villa where each cat was prepared and put in line for operation. When their turn came, the cat had to be transferred into a special cage (crusher cage) to keep them still to enable Dr. Forbes to give the anaesthetic injection. After the cat was under sedation, Nurse Tracy put eye drops to protect the cats eyes and gave them an antibiotics and an anti-parasite injection and placed the ‘patient’ on the operating table where the experienced hands of Dr. Forbes made the first incision. Castration of males taking as little time as a minute and Tracy was able to do this operation. The process for the females obviously took longer. The females ended up with the smallest incision I have ever seen. Once the operation was over, Nurse Tracy put further eye drops and tipped the left ear, to prevent that in future neutering campaigns the cat is not operated again. Then, caringly Tracy picked up the sleeping cat and, involving him in a clean sheet, placed him in his respective identified cage where he could comfortably regain consciousness. Judy and Kevin insured that the process kept flowing including sterilizing the cages/traps and cleaning up after each operation. All cats were taken the following day completely recovered and after having had a happy meal to fill their bellies to the exact same spot where they were found. The principle of Trap-Neuter-Return is followed humanely by this wonderful team who even took care to not only pick up a mother cat, but also her litter to keep the family together so that the 4 day old kittens would come to no harm during mom’s operation.

Dr. James Forbes, who came all the way from West Australia, told us that after a short stay in England where he visited his Mother, he arrived at the Faro airport on Saturday and Sunday morning started operating the cats. He retired 8 years ago and has since been involved with the World Wide Organization through which he travels to work in neutering campaigns around the world. The only work besides the neutering campaign that he maintains is treating and caring for horses. Every year he has a tight schedule operating in different parts of the world in countries like Vietnam, Thailand and India. In these countries the campaigns are mostly for neutering dogs. He said that in India around 10,000 people die of rabies each year. He believes that neutering cats and dogs is the only way to reverse the street cats and dogs overpopulation. The week 18 Oct to 24 Oct was dedicated only to neutering cats as the house was a surgery improvisation and therefore not prepared to perform operations on larger animals such as dogs. The following week Dr James Forbes would be operating dogs at Goldra where they have an operating theatre well prepared for neutering bigger animals. When this campaign is over, he will travel to Paxos, near Corfu, in Greece to help in one more neutering campaign.

Vet Nurse Tracy Hewitt arrived also on Saturday together with Vet Assistant Kevin Meehan, both from Glasgow, where they work at a PDSA veterinarian hospital. The PDSA is a non profit organisation that live on donations to provide animal care to pet owners of low income or who live on welfare. Animal lovers of all social status make donations or leave inheritance money to build a new wing for hospital or buy the much needed medical or surgical appliances and supplies. Tracy and Kevin (who told us humorously that he is a reformed male stripper), are young and always smiling and you could see that this voluntary work was exactly what they had studied for, to make a difference. They even paid for their own airplane tickets to help in this campaign. The three of them stayed at Lionel Moore’s house who happily provided for everything, including food, during their stay.

To set up this compaign, Lesley arranged the help from Worldwide Veterinary Service and Lynn organised the logistics with the collaboration of Judy. The majority of the neutered cats are returned to their environment, and any animal that requires special needs is sent to the animal shelter Goldra in Loulé, with whom Os Amigos dos Gatos has an agreement.

Os Amigos dos Gatos do Algarve an associatat member of WSPA is an all volunteer non-profit organisation who runs feral and street cats sterilisation campaigns relying heavily on donations. 4.000 feral and street cats have been neutered through AGA since 2.000. Any person can make a donation to Os Amigos dos Gatos do Algarve, be it substantial or not, it is always welcome (Tel: 962 414 584 Tel / Fax: 289 514 218). Volunteer helpers are also badly needed, to assist in projects.

For every baby that is born on any given day, 7 kittens are born. One cat has 4 kittens, each of the 4 kittens has 4, then each of each 4 has 4... and 16 months later there will be 36 cats. By these numbers, you will see that there will never be enough homes for all of these kittens. In seven years, one female cat and her offspring can produce 420,000 cats. Street cats neutering campaigns are the only way not only to keep their breeding under control, but also so the animals can lead safer and healthier lives. Although feral and street cats fear humans, they are still domestic animals and, unlike wild animals, cannot fend for themselves. Like Lesley Normington founder of Os Amigos dos Gatos do Algarve said, do “the street cats and dogs belong to nobody, or do they belong to all of us?”

A great THANK YOU to ‘Os Amigos dos Gatos’ and their team of helpers in the name of all feral and street cats (and dogs) living in Algarve. More Information on www.agalgave.com

A feral cat´s life in the Algarve
from RSPCA Brighton (England) Newsletter "Newshound"

Amigos dos Gatos do Algarve
Greeting to all Newshound readers from Amigos dos Gatos do Algarve in Portugal.

Many, many thanks are due to the RSPCA, Brighton branch, for the generous donation of 1000 Pound- which was increased subtatially by the appeal for help witch was printed in the Newshound. Generous inviduals sent contributions and, as a result, AGA recieved a total of 1630 Pound for which we are extremely grateful. Our top priority is the welfare of feral cats and our funds are directed towards neutering and providing food in urgent cases.

Fundraising in the Algarve is very difficult. The same applies to finding volunteers to help with anything. Unfortunately tourism in the Algarve has been going down in the last few years - holidays in Spain are cheaper than Portugal, new EU countries are extra competition and places like Florida are more affordable then they used to be.

In many towns on the Algarve, businesses have failed and people have been left with shattered dreams. Animals are not a high priority. Between October and April many tourist complexes, bars and restaurants are closed. Summer workers return to their home towns, unable to pay rent in the Algarve with no wage coming in.

Pre-tourism, the inhabitants of the Algarve were farmers and fisherman. The only vets were for farm animals and pets did not exist. Cats were kept (in the yard) for catching mice, dogs were kept (also outside) for guarding or hunting. Dogs and cats wed fed when the family finished their meals - the scraps were thrown on the ground in the yard. With older country people, this has not changed, but with more influence from outside, there has been some progress in general.

Many Portuguese people, as well as foreigners, feed feral cats and ask for help to get cats neutered. We lend cats traps, etc., to feeders and pay local vets to do neutering. Some vets give 50% discount but this still means that the cost for neutering one female is 55 € ( plus another 10 € if she is pregnant). The cost obviously restricts our activities. The need  is great but funds are small!

AGA approaches the management of hotels and tourist complexes if we hear they are controlling their cat problem by using poison or paying staff `per tail´ for each cat caught and handed in. When I suggested to one hotel manager setting up a feeding point for the cats and getting them all neutered, he proudly told me they already had a good control system. He said they gather all the cats together and dump them 20km away, on the far side of the motorway. They are unlikely to survive a return journey. The justification was "a lot of people live in the countryside and they will probably like to have a cat".

In many hotels and complexes, tourists feed cats in the summer but they are left to fend for themselves when the season ends. In some cases the cats can fall back on hunting, but the concrete jungle has destroyed much of their natural environment. They stay around bins searching hopefully for any discarded scraps. They try to sneak unobserved into empty apartments and restaurants where they hope they can find something to eat. Many times they are trapped inside and starve to death, or they are discovered by cleaners and battered with the mop before being (literally) booted out of the door.

Nevertheless skeleton cats give birth to miserable scraps of life, full of infection from day one and often dying in the same week they are born. Quite likely the only time these kittens have any comfort is when they are in their mother´s womb- before nature kicks them out to face the horrors of the world. Savaged by rats or dogs, tortured by schoolchildren, who find them huddled under bushes. If that´s the best life can offer, better never born. The 55 € and 10 € we have to pay for a spay/abortion seems expensive but, when considering the misery that can be saved, it´s worth every penny.

Lesley Normington
President, AGA