A group of citizens from Montreal have been capturing, sterilizing, releasing and caring for thousands of stray cats for 10 years and hope that, unlike felines, their initiative will produce babies.
“Why did I create this movement? Because I can’t stand the suffering,” replies Vanessa Anastasopoulos, the founder of this civic activity born 10 years ago and which she would like to see taken up everywhere in Montreal.
Photo provided by Vanessa Anastasopoulos
There was a commotion in the alley of Plateau-Mont-Royal as the Newspaper on this late September afternoon. Around forty volunteers gathered for the 10e edition of the shelter chore to assemble and tape recycled Styrofoam shelters from Montreal hospitals.
Pierced with a large hole and lined with a layer of insulating mylar, the shelters will allow around a hundred cats to spend the winter warm in the surrounding streets.
Since “rescuing” her first cat in the 1990s, Mme Anastasopoulos claims that more than 300 cats throughout the island of Montreal have had a better life thanks, in particular, to this heated condo equipped with a surveillance camera that she built behind the street Henri-Julien.
- Listen to the interview with Vincent Paradis, veterinary doctor and president of the Quebec Veterinary Association of Shelter Medicine on QUB radio:
“Capital of Stray Cats”
Since 2010, the City of Montreal has covered the costs of sterilization operations as part of the Capture-sterilization-return-maintain program, which has made it possible to release 12,500 sterilized cats in 19 boroughs.
According to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), there are 100,000 to 200,000 stray cats in the metropolitan area, “ [ce qui fait] of Montreal, the sad capital of stray cats,” says the Animal Rescue Network.
Photo provided by Vanessa Anastasopoulos
According to the SPCA, a single unsterilized cat could produce 420,000 kittens in just 7 years! However, only 2% of stray cats are sterilized.
While the lifespan of a domestic cat can reach 15 years, that of a stray cat on the streets of Montreal rarely exceeds five years. “And the state of health of these abandoned animals is often deplorable,” adds Véronique Lanteigne, Vanessa’s accomplice from the start. She herself adopted a cat after taming it.
The Plateau citizen movement does not wish to recruit new volunteers but its founder wants her initiative to be taken up in other districts.
What you need to know about sterilization
- The criminal code prohibits the capture of a stray animal, but by respecting a few rules, we can reduce the suffering of stray cats.
- A (free) permit from the City is required. You get it and it’s valid for one year.
- Cats must be captured in traps and transported in cages that can be borrowed from the SPCA.
- The sterilization procedure under anesthesia is accompanied by vaccination, particularly against rabies, and antiparasitic treatment. A notch on one ear helps identify cats who participated in the program.
- The person who captured the cat must release it in the same territory and continue to feed it and offer it water, even in winter.
Source: SPCA