Hi, everyone. My name is Linda Hume. Those of you who know me, know how much I love cats. I grew up with Siamese cats and until four years ago, had a Siamese cat who used to help me deal with anxiety and frequent panic attacks. As such, I will do anything to help a cat in need, and I am never happier than when cuddling with one. I think a purring kitten is one of the most calming sounds in the world.

Last year, my husband and I bought our first and forever home in the Italian village of Prezza. Imagine my delight when the first thing we saw was a mama cat and her two kittens on the road to our new house. Over the course of a few weeks, the two kittens started to pop into our open doorway and say “hello”. As it was a very hot summer, I made sure to leave food and water out for them to help them survive.

Sadly, our home in Italy, is not a permanent residence at the moment (it will be in nine years time when we retire). We had to leave Prezza last August to go back to our teaching jobs in Dubai, but we came back over the year in October (for a week), December (for three weeks), March (for two weeks), and July-August (for seven weeks). Each time these two kittens and their black and white mama, greeted us when we arrived (along with another mama). Each time, both mamas had new kittens. Not all of their kittens survived, but we went from four cats that greeted us, to eleven this last visit - 6 kittens and 5 adults. Yikes!!

Now, as mentioned, I love cats, but this is too many. We are in a tiny village of less than 1000 people, and on every street there are cats. Most of them are not neutered. The female cats are constantly pregnant or nursing new kittens. 90 percent of these kittens die before they are a year old for various reasons. Not all of the residents of this village are cat lovers. Cats tend to be seen as trouble (and with good reason at times). The cats go to the bathroom on the streets, poop in plants pots, rummage through garbage, and beg for food during any village activity. The reason we have eleven cats hanging out in our back garden is because they were making a nuisance of themselves with our neighbours and causing much angst. At least now they are relatively safe and keep out of too much trouble (although they do still leave the garden and wander about).

The only way to solve the problem of the rising cat problem and the resulting death of so many kittens (whether through disease, death by car, starvation, or injury) is to neuter as many cats as possible. We have neutered the two mamas this summer. Our hope is to continue to neuter 2-3 cats every time we come back to Prezza (starting with those we are feeding at the moment).

At the moment, most of the people here are not familiar with the term TNR (trap - neuter - return). We hope that by neutering the cats in our area, we will both be helping the village (which we dearly love) and starting a snowball effect that will continue throughout the village. If people do not follow our lead, we will take the initiative and capture the other stray cats in our community and neuter them also.

It costs 100 euros to neuter a female and 80 euros to neuter a male. We do not have the funds to neuter all of the cats in the village, or even all the cats in our back garden. As stated above, we have fixed the two mamas having the kittens and hope to neuter the female kittens in October (at which point they should be old enough). We will continue with the males on subsequent visits. Any help with this process would be greatly appreciated.

We do have an amazing neighbor who will continue to leave food out on our back porch when we leave (until the kittens are old enough to fend for themselves). We have an incredible vet who gave us discounted pricing to neuter the mamas and helped us with an injured cat for free. We have had the support of a nearby cat sanctuary called “Cats of Abruzzo”, but they have more stray dogs and cats than they can comfortably handle. We want to help them by lessening the kittens being born in Prezza, which will make it more tolerable for both humans and cats alike.

I know this is a huge ask. There are so many issues in the world that take precedent. However, I cannot stand to see the suffering of either human or animal. While I cannot alleviate all suffering, I can do something about the animals in our village. I would appreciate any help you can give to these beautiful souls. God bless you and thank you for reading!