Are Greek cats exceptionally charming? Do they deserve parasite treatment?

We have told you before about the plight of street cats in Greece. Every village has a community of semi-feral cats who depend, as so many animals do, on the kindness of strangers.

But in a country where animal welfare is not a priority, and locals often have neither the knowledge nor the desire to help, kindness doesn’t come nearly often enough.

Street cats experience pretty grim lives, surviving on food scraps and foraging in dumpsters. Without our help, the best that street cats like these can expect is a season surviving on scraps discarded by the tourists who flock to the islands in summer. In winter, when the tourists are gone, the cats get sick, and with no food or medical treatment, suffer and die.

For the past three years, we have been working to help street cats in the north of the island of Kefalonia, a beautiful, densely forested, very rural area with a small human population, but lots of cats. When we first started working in the area, skinny cats were everywhere – now, you rarely see a hungry cat on Kefalonia’s streets. Even better, the population is beginning to stabilize as our spay and neuter program takes effect. All this because our team feeds, treats and sterilizes street cats all year round.

I visit this project whenever I can and have come to believe that Greek cats are exceptionally charming, affectionate and clever. All cats know that being cute helps get them fed, but my theory about Greek felines is that, in such a hostile environment, cats have got this manipulation of humans down to a fine art and have learned to be extra captivating, just to survive.

Fueled by your donations, the NFA team is on the ground in Kefalonia every single day and your support is making an enormous difference to the lives of the cats. We now feed and provide emergency medical care for 500 street cats in 15 small mountain villages. Since January, we have given the cats 5,511 pounds (2,500 kilograms) of food, sterilized 230 and provided extensive emergency medical treatment to 20 more. 

Ticks are rife in these rural areas and when they latch on to cats, they transfer parasites to them, potentially giving them a death sentence. To make matters worse, the cats supplement our food supplies by foraging in garbage skips where people dump rotten, leftover food.

When the cats and kittens jump inside a dumpster, they are diving into a pit of disease, and dumpster-dwelling parasites quickly invade street cats who have little chance of surviving a serious infection. While infected cats may survive the summer, their immune systems are overwhelmed in the cold winter months, and many suffer and die.

With your help, we can stop suffering in its tracks by providing effective anti-parasite treatments. We can’t catch 500 feral cats so we can treat them – they are far too clever for us – but we have a plan.

Usually, we feed the cats dry cat pellets because, with so many cats to feed, we can’t afford fancy food. But if we buy a consignment of wet food, mix anti-parasite medicine with it and offer it to the cats, they will gobble it down without hesitation. $5,000 (£4,000) will make sure that parasites will not be a problem for these cats for three months. With $10,000 (£8,000), we can give them six months of protection, seeing them through the harsh, cold winter.

The world is a tough place for cats. They appear aloof and self-sufficient, but in reality, they need us to survive. If you are a cat person, you know exactly what I mean.

Please help by donating today so we can rid them of parasites and give them a strong chance of surviving when winter comes.

For the animals,

P.S. Imagine 500 healthy cats purring in happiness thanks to your help. Now that’s a happy thought! Please donate now to make this cat-filled dream a reality.

Banner credit: NFA/Romina Dobra