More than 200 cats, who had been adopted or purchased during the pandemic, are now in the care of the Villikettir sanctuary and are looking for new homes, reports RÚV.
Chairwoman of Villikettir, Arndís Björg Sigurgeirsdóttir, says that people who got cats during the pandemic are now getting rid of them as their lives go back to normal.
Currently, Arndís is living with 12 kittens and their two mothers who had to be taken from a home whose owner could not take care of them. However, the sanctuary is home to way more kittens and cats.
“We have close to 60 kittens right now that are waiting for a home,” says Arndís. “I’d say we’ve got about 60-70 adults as well, from one-year-olds upwards.”
The sanctuary also takes care of feral and stray cats. When feral cats come in they are dewormed and tagged and then released back to their wild homes. When stray cats come in they often have to find new homes as the cats were abandoned.
“COVID was not kind to us, neither in sickness or in cats, because people were adopting cats because they had to stay at home, work from home, or something like that, and cats are naturally great company,” says Arndís. “As this period passed, people arrived from abroad and simply put the cats down. Put them out. We’re finding cats in the Southern Highlands that probably came from [Reykjavík].”
Learn more about Villikettir here.
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