MAY 27, 2003
Together, we can save strays

I REFER to the report, 'AVA admits: Yes, we're culling stray cats' (ST, May 24).

I was terribly saddened and angered by the news. My parents and I are part of the AgriFood and Veterinary Authority's (AVA's) Stray Cat Rehabilitation Scheme, and we have put in much effort in the past few years to help sterilise the cats in our neighbourhood.

We not only provide food for the cats, but also play our part in keeping the surroundings clean by putting the food on dried leaves, and placing these on open fields where no one usually walks.

In the many years that I have been helping to take care of the stray cats, I have been cheered many times by their delightful personalities and their unconditional affection once they start to trust me.

Many of these cats have become my friends and, if I could, I would take them all home.

Miss Harleen Kaur is glad to see them go because she is scared of cats.

Is being scared of something justification for killing it?

Cats are naturally clean animals, and they know how to bury their faeces.

I have seen many cats doing their business on grass fields, after which they cover up.

People tend to blame stray cats whenever they see something dirty.

For example, after a lantern-festival celebration, the park near my place was littered with tidbit packets, drink cans and candle wax.

My mum and I were walking in the park when a man approached us, pointed to new dark stains near the benches, and blamed cats for them.

Many people say cats spread diseases.

My family and other cat lovers have been in contact with the strays for years and we are still perfectly healthy.

When I got sick in the past, for example with the flu, it was because I caught it from a classmate. A human, by the way.

Instead of treating strays as pests to be eradicated, we should lend them a hand.

They are not pieces of garbage which we can throw away at will.

They are living, feeling creatures, not to be ill-treated or, worse, culled.

Together, we can work out a better plan.

CANDICE KHOR SZE NEE (MS)

 
Sterilising males will keep numbers down

I WONDER whether the sterilisation-versus-culling debate might spawn another approach to controlling the stray-cat situation. Both methods appear to be subject to the problem of a remaining breeding population despite the best efforts to reach as many strays as possible.

Both rely on 'removing' (via sterilising or killing) significant numbers of animals but inevitably leaving intact individuals to find one another and breed. Even the most vigilant culling programmes do not address the remaining healthy breeding population, which is boosted continually by abandoned animals.

As a veterinarian, I favour the more humane approach of sterilisation. If we sterilised only male cats (via vasectomy, so as to permit the cats' libido and aggression to remain intact), then released them back to their territories, they would compete successfully with unsterilised males to mate with females which would then not have kittens. Over time, with large numbers of vasectomised males in the group, the breeding population is disrupted and numbers reduced drastically.

This has been proven in insect control (eg, fruit fly) where it is impossible to kill all individuals.

If such a programme were tried out in Singapore, I would volunteer my time to help vasectomise the cats.

BARBARA PICKOVER (MRS)

 

TOURIST WHO CUT SHORT VISIT:
Singapore's not OK

I LOVE Singapore, having visited and enjoyed the city many times. I was one of the few tourists who ignored warnings of disease and terrorism, and sat in an airplane for 13 hours to return to visit my friends here.

Having enjoyed a pleasant day on Friday - shopping, eating, drinking, people-watching and spending at least an hour at Boat Quay photographing and enjoying the presence of two incredibly beautifully coloured calico cats (strays), I thought Singapore was truly a great place. But when I read the paper at breakfast the next day, the food stuck in my throat and tears welled up in my eyes. I love animals (most Western tourists do) and reading that the Government decided to have the strays rounded up and killed in an effort to further 'clean up Singapore', I decided to cut short my two-week stay. I am appalled, to say the least, and this is enough reason for me not to return to Singapore.

I have read about and applaud the efforts of animal-welfare societies here, like the SPCA, and private individuals who have spent time, effort and money to help bring the stray population under control.

What kind of place is Singapore that the Government decides to quietly go about rounding up all these innocent creatures to kill them?

Why kill innocent creatures who are in the predicament they are in only because irresponsible residents abandon them or do not get them spayed?

ANNETTE VAN MEIJER-SMITH (MRS)
Germany

 
Allow cats in HDB flats

MP Teo Ho Pin's suggestion that animal-welfare societies in Singapore promote the adoption of stray cats is helpful but not possible unless he campaigns for the lifting of an HDB ban on cat ownership.

Or is he suggesting that the 10 to 15 per cent of Singaporeans living in private property shoulder the full responsibility of adopting 80,000 cats?

JASMINE LEE SHI YUN (MISS)

 

WANTED - A MORE HUMANE SOLUTION: Western countries are more accommodating towards animals, with the British government even planning laws to guarantee that cats, dogs and other pets have a minimum quality of life ('Pets to get legal rights to minimum quality of life'; ST, April 29, 2002).

I am sure that with the cooperation of animal-welfare organisations and animal lovers, we can address the problem of strays in a more humane way.

LEOW CHIAN CHIAN (MS)

 

EXCUSE ME, THAT'S NOT OK: In sensitive times like these, AVA should not be stoking unfounded paranoia. How do you think people will view cats from now on?

If this is part of being 'Singapore's OK', then we would rather not be OK, especially when it involves killing animals to palliate our paranoia and fears.

KEVIN SIM CHOON NGEE

 

STRESS PUBLIC EDUCATION: We want a clean environment but there is a difference between cleanliness and being hospital sterile.

We tend to go a little too far in our fervour and forget to look within ourselves first for solutions. Shouldn't public education regarding waste disposal and cat feeding be carried out actively before extreme measures are taken?

KOH WAN CHING (MISS)

 

GUESS WHO CLEANS UP?: I have nothing against strays, but I support the culling of cats and dogs. Where I live, there is a cat lover in the neighbourhood. Every morning, this cat lover would leave food at the void desk to feed the strays. Every day, there would be some leftover. The birds would come when the cat leaves, and sometimes you would see rats having a great time, too.

Guess who cleans up the area? The poor cleaner.

YEO KOK SENG

 

BIG CATS, BIG RATS: Stray cats are so well fed by people that they do not have to catch rats. In the vicinity of the old Ang Mo Kio neighbourhood, there are big cats and ... big rats as well.

I strongly urge the AVA not to succumb to pressure from animal lovers to stop the culling. If animal lovers care for the cats, they should take them home.

NG MUI PENG (MS)