A Plea to Cat Owners in Eglinton Road, Paget Rise, Ripon Road and so on...

If you live locally to Eglinton School in Plumstead, SE18, in surrounding roads such as Paget Rise, Rippon Road, Eglinton Road, Whitworth Road, and so on, and own a cat, we urge you to please neuter your cat before allowing him or her outside.

Over the years, we have been called out to these few roads more times than we can count about stray cats and kittens. It is an area with a dire stray cat problem, where we have encountered shocking cases and witnessed suffering on a huge scale.

If your cat is unneutered, you are contributing directly to this problem; your cat will be mating, and no doubt fighting, with other unneutered stray and owned cats in the area. It may be causing abscesses, spreading FIV, or fathering kittens that will be born on the streets with a slim chance of surviving the winter. Your unneutered cat also runs a large risk of becoming a ‘stray’ themselves, as unneutered cats are compelled by their hormones to roam and form new territories. Any stray cat colony, such as the one that has grown in this patch, sadly begins with just a few ‘harmless’ unneutered cats.

After being called out to yet another stray litter of kittens in the area, we have decided that in the coming weeks we will be neutering and releasing as many strays locally as is possible. But our efforts will be meaningless if owned cats in the area remain unneutered. The numbers will continue to go up.

So we’re asking you to please be apart of the solution. Help us to end this cycle - we can even assist you with free or low cost neutering if needed - just get in touch. Because when you make the choice to let your cat roam outside unneutered, it doesn't just affect you and your cat. It has a knock on effect that will cause suffering, disease and in some cases even death to generations of cats in your local area.

Like these cats pictured and described below; ALL rescued in the roads around Eglinton.

.11 kittens (2x separate litters) living in a bin shed on Eglinton Road, the offspring of an owned, unneutered cat. The owners had lost count of how many litters she had had over the years. Who knows how many kittens her kittens had?

.Syd, found on Eglinton Road covered in wounds from being attacked by other unneutered toms, FIV positive.

.Eggy, found on Eglinton Road, FIV positive, emaciated, suffering from untreated allergies, cat flu, covered in wounds and in such horrific condition that he took months to recover (pictured).

.One deceased cat found on Herbert Road, its body having laid decomposing on a bank for weeks (pictured, but partially obscured).

.Morty, fed in a garden on Ripon Road, burst abscess on his face caused by a bite from another unneutered Tom (pictured).

.Tapas, one day away from giving birth, found in a garden near Eglinton.

.Ripley, rescued a few weeks later, heavily pregnant, some kittens were stillborn.

.Mimi & her six kittens rescued from Paget Rise, covered in more ticks than we've ever seen (pictured), a rescue that took six days in freezing temperatures.

.A feral cat colony in a back garden on Paget Rise, in which we neutered several adults and rehomed several kittens over many weeks.

.A cat traced back to Paget Rise through microchip details dumped at a local vet.

Find out more about local free & low cost neutering at https://bit.ly/36RjaQt, or get in touch; https://www.catcuddles.org.uk/contact