Project S (V)

It was raining in the early morning of Mon, 29 Dec. Thank God the rain stopped by mid morning. I came down with a sore throat the day before. V called me to postpone the trapping to an hour later because he had an urgent case to attend to. I kept my fingers crossed that the trapping would go smoothly.

I reached Site X earlier than V and spotted three cats. When V joined me, we did a recee of the site and I pointed out the cats' favourite hanging out spot to him. He also asked me about their temperament, whether they are friendly to people - this would determine whether he can nab them with his bare hands or to use a trap, or even a net.

The first target was a very manja brown cat. She was hanging around an Indian family of three. The boy commented that her stomach was quite round and asked me if she was pregnant. V went to get the carriers and asked me to keep an eye on her. While waiting for V to return, I had a good time stroking the cat and giving her chin scritches. She was very vocal. V got back and he started to get friendly with the cat. In the blink of an eye, he lifted her by the scuff of her neck and put her into the carrier. When we were about to start out, he had put on a pressure bandage around his lower arm. I then understood why he needed that. The lifting can cause injury if done on a prolonged basis and some of these cats are not light.

We went to the cats' favourite hanging-out spot. There were three cats - one white/grey and the two whites. V laid down some tuna wet food and nabbed the white/grey one by the scuff of his/her neck but he/she managed to get away. The two whites ran away when they saw what V did.

We decided to check out the rest of site X to see if there were other cats. There were none so we returned back to the favourite spot. V retrieved a trap from his van. He prepared the trap for the whites. To my surprise, I saw the kittens who had gone missing for some time. There were 4-5 of them, very scrawny. I was glad to see them alive.

Two 'kaypohs' (busybodies) came along to ask what we were doing. V explained to them and touched a little on sterilisation. They actually hanged around for some time and at one point, I wondered if they would ever get on with their own business.

A brown cat came along to check out the food in the trap and was captured. Out of nowhere, two brown cats came along to check out the food in the trap and we also got these two. One of them is still quite small so we released him/her. V transferred the other one into a carrier. He relaid the trap and this time, the two whites (ie cat no. 6 and cat no. 7 in my last post) came for the food in the trap. We found cat no. 6 to be slightly small in size and agreed to bring to the vet for sterilisation if it is a female. If a male is neutered prematurely, his growth would be stunted. It is indeed a female. I asked V to check with the vet first if it would be ok to spay her.

In total, five were trapped. I didn't take any photos nor video clip of the process because I was too engrossed with the trapping and I didn't want to cause any unnecessary distractions. We took about 1hour 15mins in all. I wouldn't have been able to do this on my own (or even with Grimlock). Thank God for the pair of experienced hands. No cats suffered unnecessarily in the process. This is definitely hard work.

V sent them to the veterinary clinic yesterday, 30 Dec - all five were sterilised. The first brown cat was pregnant so she underwent an abortion. I reckon there isn't any other way in controlling the population at site X, especially when the cats already don't have enough to eat (food source is limited) and the living conditions are quite tough. The remaining are two females and two males. V said they can be released back at site X tomorrow. Grimlock has generously offered to sponsor half of the cost :)

I'm left with cat no. 5 (the white/orange one), the tom cat, two white/grey cats and the brown one whom we let off, I think. Hopefully these are all the remaining grown-ups. Will have to wait for another 1-2 months to get the kittens fixed.

And if you're interested, here are some links on:
Why Sterilisation?
Benefits of Spaying.

Update - 1st Jan 09: I realised there was an error in my earlier posting. Three browns and two whites were trapped for sterilisation, as follows. They were released back at Site X earlier this evening. Some of the cats look identical so these photos will serve as useful records (my memory fails me at times). Of course, these now all each sport a tipped ear.