Darwin, Australia, has loads of unwanted stray cats

by Naomi
(Darwin Australia)

Unfortunately Darwin (Australia) has loads of unwanted stray cats and many are dumped in the bush to die horrible deaths.

Many more hang around housing commission places to feed off scraps - a usual story worldwide. I have 22 rescue cats - some have been rescued from shelters, some from houses which claim no ownership, some from the bush and the latest from being crab bait - another story - I should write it all down one day.

I rehome where possible but with supply exceeding demand they tend to stay. The only (TNR) cat who I regularly feed is Marzipan. I have caught her twice, and caught her kittens (x2) and rehomed.

She is of course desexed from the first catching, she sat in the back of the cat box for 3 days in my bathroom and hissed, didn't eat, drink, wee or poo, just hated me. I decided to return her to where I had found her and just keep on feeding.

That was sometime in the beginning of 2006. In 2009 she started to be friendly. She would come up to me for a rub through the fence before she would eat. It was so rewarding. I recaught her at this time as her 'home', an old vacant warehouse, was being demolished to make way for units and some shops.

I put her in an outside cattery which I thought was cat proof - thinking that the bathroom (which was anyway occupied by this time) was too alien for her. Unfortunately she found holes in the cat proof cattery which I was completely unaware of (yes I had checked it and tried to make it as escape proof as possible). Anyway I stressed for 4 days continuing to return to her original 'home' only 3km away and fortunately and on the 4th day she came up to me again looking for pats - what a relief.

Since then the place has been bulldozed. I have found another place to feed her but rarely see her these days, maybe only 4 times this year and every now and again when I think she has finally gone I sit down in the car park in my car just waiting - then she turns up, silent as the night, eats and disappears and I'm confident in continuing to put down food.

She has completely lost any socialisation which she developed but at least I know she is OK. (pict attached - I hope :-).

I've also attached an article which I compiled from research which others have done. I got so fed up with the line - all cats should be killed as they kill our wildlife - it was years ago now but I thought very good. I'm sure it still applies.

Naomi

Hi Naomi.... nice to hear from you. You are very welcome here and your story is interesting and welcome too. You have great patience and commitment.

I hope you don't mind me changing the title.

Marzipan looks like a very capable cat with a wild look in her eyes. She has a Van type marking on her forehead. I think she has a bit of Turkish Van in her.

I would like you to do two things if you have time:

1. Re-attached the article that you refer to because I didn't get it, but send it by email to me, please: mjbmeisteratgmail.com (substitute @ for "at")

2. Tell me more about cats being turned into crab bait - that sounds horrible but I like to fight these fights and expose abuse and stop abuse. You can either make another post using the same form or email it to me.

Thanks a lot for sharing.

Darwin Australia has loads of unwanted stray cats to Feral cats