1000 domestic cats abandoned on Koh Phi Phi

NEWS AND COMMENT-KOH PHI PHI, THAILAND: Over 1,000 domestic cats have been abandoned by their owners on Koh Phi Phi which is a collection of islands, and a part of Thailand, between the large island of Phuket and the Straits of Malacca. Thailand is dependent on tourism which represent 21.9% of its GDP. During the Covid pandemic tourism dried up. Tourists used to visit Koh Phi Phi but no longer.

The people who serviced tourism on those islands went back to the mainland and they left their domestic cats behind them. As a consequence, they are starving. Some cat owners returned to collect them but many have not. Volunteers feed them. This started in March 2020. They feed the cats twice a day but one volunteer said that a lot of them are starving.

THERE ARE MORE CAT ARTICLES FROM THAILAND AT THE BASE OF THE PAGE.

Buddhism

93% of the population of Thailand are Buddhists. Buddhism requires its followers to treat animals kindly and to do no harm to them. The BBC says that Buddhists try to show “loving-kindness to all beings, including animals”. Clearly this is untrue. It seems that religion does little to curb the excesses of humanity. When push comes to shove people shove religion out of the way and forget what they’re meant to be doing in order to act decently.

There is a Facebook page on the plight of the Koh Phi Phi abandon cats. The two photographs on this page come from that Facebook page which is trying to encourage people to donate in order to help the cats survive. If you want to visit the page, please click this link.

On the Facebook page there are some videos of the abandoned cats. The person who made the videos has added some romantic music. It’s a good attempt but it is a failure because this is not a time to make pretty videos if indeed the cats are starving. The place is idyllic but if the cats are struggling to survive it is irrelevant. The video should be more realistic. It should show volunteers feeding the cats and explaining their predicament. I am being critical but I feel I need to be.

Note: This is a video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

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