Kitten Calamity: Shelter At Cat-pacity

Pandemonium has ravaged the cat shelter Kattholt this summer as the number of homeless cats arriving in recent weeks has exploded, which has lead to impossible overpopulation in the shelter. The shelter, along with Kattavinafélag Íslands (The Friends of Cats Association of Iceland) took to Facebook to voice their concerns.

“In recent weeks, dozens of kittens and queens who are either pregnant or have just had kittens have arrived to us,” Kattholt wrote. “Noticeably, people have been leaving their kitties homeless when they go on summer holiday, which is unacceptable and irresponsible towards an animal that trusts and loves its owner.”

Cats without cradles

Kattholt claims that the increasing number of cats is a visible and persistent problem and maintains that queens and tomcats need to be spayed. The shelter urges cat owners to take responsibility for their animals “NO LATER THAN NOW!”

Speaking to visir.is, Halldóra Snorradóttir, director of Kattholt, said that they often receive cats whose owners have gone on holiday without making sure their cats are taken care of.

“People go on holiday and instead of finding someone to care for their cats, they just lock them out and leave,” Halldóra said.

Filled to cat-pacity

Halldóra said that the shelter is almost above the number of cats it can accommodate and that around 50 strays and a further 50 cat hotel guest are currently staying there. She also claims that owners’ cat-titude seems worse than in previous years.

“You could say we’ve reached the pain threshold,” she said. “There are one hundred cats in the house and we always notice this increase during the summer, but it seems more frequent this year than in the past that people throw their cats out of the door when they go on holiday.”

We are feline bad about this

We at the Grapevine are of the purr-suasion that the purr-plexing problem with bad cat owners needs to be stopped now, there can be no pro-cat-stination! But that being said, we need to remain paw-sitive, put on our thinking cats and solve this cat-has-trophy.

P.s. I guess our cat plan doesn’t seem so mean anymore, huh?