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Help Feed & Neuter 100+ Strays

Two of my good friends Claire and Paul have inherited the responsibility of feeding and neutering the community stray cats in our area. They feed over 100 stray cats 3 times a week! That's a lot of food. 


Here's a bit of background:
Our community is one of the oldest expat communities in Dubai with most villas being over 30 years old. There are over 300 villas in the area and over 6 years ago everyone who lived here was evicted so the developer could knock down the villas and make a bigger developement.  The community had strays already (like most places in Dubai) but when this happened many expats decided to simply abandon their household pets. A very sad state of affairs but very common in this transient place.

The development never happened and in the end the the old household cats began mating with the strays and the population increased. Thank god some of the old residents came back regularly to feed the strays, but the strays then became dependant on being fed and are most definitely not hunting cats anymore.

Dubai has a serious issue with stray cats and dogs and most of the local charities are overflowing and literally cannot help anymore. Stray animals aren't neutered by locals as it is not deemed as correct by their Religion.

The village got refurbished and people started to move back in little over a year ago. A few residents who cared have tried to help neuter and feed when they can.
Ultimately people come and go in Dubai and the responsibility of this has fallen on to my friends.

Problems:
Obviously not everyone likes cats and some people in the village have complained about them and their feeding stations being positioned to close to their houses multiple time. The developer then issued a warning to stop feeding the cats but thankfully Claire and some supporters argued the case that the animals where dependant and got backing from many residents (like me).

Following on from the incident Claire was granted permission to continue feeding across the village but had to agree to help reduce cat numbers across the village and to set up a village committee of residents that may be able assist with the complaints they are receiving. Claire also was awarded an official MEAF (Middle East Animal Foundation email ) which is great so any complaints can go through the formal process.

Why they need help:
There are over 100 stray cats in the village and approximately 12 feeding stations around the village where the cats know to find food and water where they have to be fed 3 times a week.

At the moment the food alone costs around 3,000 AED (540GBP/820USD) a month and Claire and Paul have a couple of kind donaters who help out how and when they can but the majority of the time (and increasingly) they are paying for the food out of their own pocket.

Approximately 90% of the stray cats have now been neutered but due to increasing pressure from the community we need that to be 100%.

We also need to hold adoption days and try to re-home as many cats as we can. Unfortunately some of the cats are very scared of humans after being abandoned and some are now to wild to be re-homed but there is hope for some.

About Claire & Paul

Claire is known as the 'mad cat lady' to her friends and her and her loving husband Paul helps everyway they can. They have 11 cats themselves. Paul has even built a catery extension to their villa.

These two have put a tremendous amount of time, money and effort into these cats and really do deserve a bit of help.


Please help:
We do have a group in the community trying to raise funds where possible but when you're asking the same people month by month, and you need continuous donations, you seem to exhaust your efforts and network very quickly. 

Claire and Paul need help and I know they would really appreciate the littlist gesture. These 100+ cats depend on them and have no one else to help. 

It has been a bit stressful for them recently with the problems in the community and they are now stuck with little food and can't afford to pay out of their own pocket.

Any donation would be gratefully recieved. Thank you for taking the time to read our case.

Organizer

Julie Hernon
Organizer

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