About Cork Cat Action Trust

Our reason for being is to help feral cats and kittens.

                                   Cork CAT is dedicated to the health, well-being and welfare of cats, feral, stray, and abandoned. Our main objective is to reduce the suffering of and prevent unwanted breeding of feral cats by a programe of  trap/neuter/release. All funds raised  goes towards TNR and giving necessary caring for cats that we are able to help. To this end we do ask for donations towards a neuter which enables more cats to be neutered. CAT Cork is a very very small group of dedicated volunteers and unfortunately we do not have a sanctuary. 
Cork Cat Action Trust is a very small group of volunteers who are trying to help address the crisis of feral cats that need to be neutered and thereby put a halt to the number of feral kittens being born. Our organization is composed of unpaid volunteers who pay their own expenses. All funds raised go to neutering of cats and caring for those that we are able to help.  All donations we receive towards each neuter are greatly needed and appreciated.

WHY NEUTER  CATS? 

Neutering colonies of cats and individual cats  

• it stabilizes the population at manageable levels.
• it eliminates "annoying" behaviours associated with mating (fighting, yowling, and "spraying toms").
• it is more effective and less costly than repeated attempts at eradication.
• it is humane to the animals and fosters compassion in the community.

Cat Action Trust exists to solve the problem of the feral cat.   Feral cats are domestic cats living wild, either because they and their descendants have strayed from home or more likely because they are unwanted and have been abandoned.   And they multiply.

A healthy female can give birth to 120 kittens in her lifetime.   Feral cats do not walk alone.  They gather in colonies wherever they can find food and shelter – in backyards, on building sites, in hospital grounds, in every suburban corner.   They are the inhabitants of dereliction.  So if nothing is done to control the population of a feral colony the cats soon over-run the neighbourhood, and the neighbours object.

Even if all the cats in an area are destroyed before long a new colony arrives to replace them.

Cat Action Trust was founded in the 1970s, in England, by a handful of people who thought that this slaughter of innocent cats was both cruel and senseless.   They thought how much better it would be to control the cat population, to contain and to maintain it.   And so they set to work. Volunteers visited cat colonies, trapped the cats, took them to vets to be neutered, found the kittens that were tame, good homes, and returned those adult cats who were too old to change their feral ways to their home sites. Then they organized feeding rota's, and kept an eye open for any new arrivals who might need a trip to the vet.  

The wisdom of this work was swiftly appreciated, and not least by the cats – some of whom found themselves on payrolls instead of being classified as a public nuisance.   Institutions discovered that a well managed colony was not only a “squadron” of rat-catchers but also a community that brought out the best in everybody.   The work of the Cat Action Trust was seen to be the practical answer to the dilemma of the feral cat.   And one local authority after another adopted the CAT policy.   It is now being taken up abroad.

CAT has been operating in Cork since 2000, and has trapped and neutered thousands of cats, and re-homed over 1000 kittens. But there is still a great deal to be done.   There are still many colonies in the city and county, who have not been attended to.   There is no such thing as a small colony, because a mother and her kittens can, over one year, turn a single mother into a colony of 20 to 30 cats.    There is a great need for more money and more members willing to trap, take cats or kittens to the vet, keep for a recovery period, and return to the site, volunteers are needed to foster, tame, and re-home kittens, and much help is needed to fund-raise and support the work.

Veterinary costs are high, but a number of veterinary practices give us much reduced rates for neutering and for vaccinations. Cork CAT receives a one off grant from the Department of Agriculture, in recognition of the work being done. The monies received from all sources helps with the many bills that we have, but there is always a big difference between what we need and what we have.  It would be of enormous relief if we could rely on regular donations, either directly, through a bank standing order, or via the “Donate” button on the website.