Feral Cat Trust needs your help
Tracey Hartley recently met with Northglen News to put out an appeal for help specifically in the uMhlanga area.
ON a daily basis, Tracey Hartley feeds more than 100 cats in more than 20 colonies in and around Durban. The uMhlanga resident is part of the Feral Cat Rescue Trust, which is run by a small group of volunteers, passionate about giving feral cats a better quality of life on the streets.
The rescue’s primary concern is sterilisation, but to also feed colonies and rescue sick and injured felines.
She recently met with Northglen News to put out an appeal for help specifically in the uMhlanga area.
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“For the past five months, a kind family in uMhlanga have offered me a room where I’ve been able to house feral cats after they’ve been spayed or neutered. Typically they’ve been with the family for about two days before I collect them and release them where they were captured. Unfortunately this family is now leaving the area and I’m looking for anyone who can offer up a room or even a garage to me to help with the cats I rescue and sterilise.
“All their needs are taken care of by me so it’s just a place to recover before release. I unfortunately am unable to take any cats in because I live in a flat. Ideally I’m looking for someone in uMhlanga as I have a few other homes around north Durban helping me out,” she explained.
Hartley said in many cases, feral cat colonies were a man-made problem as they arise from dumped pets.
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“Feral cats are once domestic cats, or the descendants of once domestic cats, and their offspring, who are now living in the wild. Originally they may have been pets who were abandoned by uncaring owners, or who have simply wandered away from home and got lost, often due to not having been neutered. They often tend to form colonies wherever there is shelter and a food supply, farms, industrial estates, abandoned areas of land, rubbish tips, or where animal lovers provide food,” she said.
If you are willing to help Hartley, contact her on 082 786 7269.
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