Cat Feeding Stations

Published in About Animals

We are delighted to see our cat feeders being put to good use! The initiative is developing slowly but surely.

We welcome: 1) suggestions as to where cat feeding stations are needed and

2) volunteers who will guarantee to look after the feeders, keeping them clean and provided with (high quality) dry food and water.

The system cannot work unless there are people nearby who are willing to take responsibility for the feeders in different areas.

Eco Hvar of course will do as much as we can to help supply the necessary foodstuff and in any other way that we can .

The aims of the cat-feeding project

We are trying to provide adequate food for as many cats as possible, to ensure that the cats have a chance of living healthily. An important part of the project is the sterilization programme. In recent years, the local authorities on Hvar, as elsewhere in Croatia, finance cat sterilizations to help reduce the numbers of unwanted cats in the environment. Some authorities pay for males and females to be sterilized, some for females only. Taking stray cats for sterilization requires careful planning: the cat has to be caught in the morning and taken straight to the vet. Most importantly, after the operation the cat has to be taken into a safe environment for a day or two until it has recovered enough to return to its old haunts. The local vets cannot provide after-care unless there is an emergency.

Some people do not like animals, and cats in particular. So one of our aims is to help prevent the cats from being a nuisance, by reducing the numbers of unwanted cats and providing basic facilities for them.

Healthy, sterilized cats who are used to being handled have a better chance of finding a good home, so of course the best outcome is for the street cats to be adopted and given the right conditions for a good life. Some stray cats on Hvar strike lucky and move into a life of safety, comfort and even luxury. When they do, it can be difficult to imagine them scavenging for food and chancing their luck in the uncertain world of homelessness. The ginger cat in the picture below is a good example, the only clue to his previous life in the wild being the notch in his right ear which shows that he was sterilized under the programme for strays.

Ginger fell happily on all four paws! Photo: Vivian Grisogono

How to help

If you want to help the island's stray cats, please read the detailed information in our article 'Cats: How to help when needed'.

REALISTIC OFFERS OF PRACTICAL HELP TO EXTEND THE CAT-FEEDING PROJECT WILL BE GRATEFULLY RECEIVED VIA EMAIL This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

 November 2023.

You are here: Home about animals Cat Feeding Stations

Eco Environment News feeds

  • Lovehoney sponsors Aphrodite-themed ‘pleasure garden’ full of flowers associated with love and sex

    It is one of the most prestigious events of the UK social calendar, but the great and good attending Chelsea flower show may be in for a shock this year as the Royal Horticultural Society unveils a sex-themed garden sponsored by a company that sells vibrators.

    Lovehoney, a sex toy company, is sponsoring an Aphrodite-themed “pleasure garden” full of flowers and plants associated with love and sex.

    Chelseaflowershow will be held at the Royal Hospital Gardens from 19 to 23 May.

    Continue reading...

  • Landowner disputes, coastal erosion and disused ferry hindering completion of King Charles III England coast path

    The longest managed coastal walking route in the world has been opened by the king at the Seven Sisters cliff walk.

    However, large parts of the King Charles III England coast path are still closed to the public after objections from landowners, fears about coastal erosion and a disused ferry.

    Continue reading...

  • Move will put national security and lives overseas at risk, critics say, as overall UK aid budget is slashed to 0.3% of gross national income

    Climate aid to developing countries from the UK will be cut by about 14% to roughly £2bn a year under government plans, in a move critics said would put national security and lives overseas at risk.

    The move follows bitter rows with the Treasury, which wanted deeper cuts owing to pressure on spending resulting from the war in Iran.

    Continue reading...

  • Conservation can be hard work. But not when it comes to helping these little orange and brown beauties

    You’ve almost certainly seen gatekeeper butterflies, even if you don’t know them by name. The gatekeeper is, says naturalist and butterfly enthusiast Matthew Oates, “a charming butterfly; a charming meditation of soft oranges and browns”. Traditionally found in the “scrub edges” (the borders between grassland and woods) and at hedge margins, they are frequently seen in suburban and urban areas, near garden gates (hence their name) and at the base of shrubs. The gatekeeper is in no hurry, so you’ll get to enjoy it. “It doesn’t dash about at great speed,” says Oates. “It flops around; both males and females bask a lot.” As a bonus, Oates adds, gatekeeper males are “extremely polite to each other”, unlike lots of other butterflies, which are highly territorial. “They’re gentlemen.”

    Continue reading...

  • Iran war has increased gas price, with effects on UK energy bills that could be avoided, Common Wealth says

    Household energy bills could be reduced by up to £203 a year by stopping expensive fossil gas setting the price of energy in the UK, according to a report.

    Under the existing system, gas – the most expensive form of electricity production in the UK system – set the price of energy 85% of the time in 2024 in the UK, even though it generates only about a quarter of Britain’s electricity.

    Continue reading...

  • Trillions of insects embark, largely unnoticed, on epic journeys every year across mountain ranges, deserts and seas, and it is only now, as their numbers suffer huge declines, that scientists are tracking their movements

    On a cloudless sunny day in October 1950, ornithologists Elizabeth and David Lack stood on a mountain pass in the Pyrenees and observed a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle – clouds of migrating insects.

    Up to 500 butterflies were fluttering past them every hour through the 2,200m-high Puerto de Bujaruelo mountain pass on the French-Spanish border. By mid-afternoon dragonflies were skimming through, outnumbering the butterflies by 10 to one. The spaces between were filled with thousands of tiny flies.

    Continue reading...

  • Puffins, guillemots and razorbills are being washed up dead or dying on Europe’s Atlantic coast in what scientists call a ‘wreck’

    Thousands of seabirds – mostly puffins, but also many guillemots and razorbills – are being washed up dead or dying on the Atlantic coasts of western Europe, in what scientists call a “wreck”.

    This year’s events, the consequence of a series of severe storms during the late autumn and winter, are the worst since 2014, when as many as 54,000 birds were found stranded. Of these, well over half – between 30,000 and 34,000 – were puffins.

    Continue reading...

  • Birdsville and Bedourie locals are used to being trapped by flooding – but if they run out of Tim Tams and chocolate, ‘that’s a big problem’

    To many city dwellers, becoming trapped for weeks where you live would be a terrifying prospect. Not so for the remote outback towns of Birdsville and Bedourie on the edge of the Munga-Thirri Simpson desert. Five weeks after flooding cut off roads into the towns, the residents’ biggest complaint is that the local store is down to two flavours of chips.

    Since early February, the rural Queensland communities which border both the Northern Territory and South Australia, have only been accessible by plane. Flooding has turned the orange outback green-blue and, with further heavy rainfall and flooding forecast in the coming days, the dirt roads aren’t expected to open for another month.

    Continue reading...

  • Prof Kaveh Madani, winner of the Stockholm water prize, was accused of sabotage with his environmental work

    Eight years before he got the call telling him he had won the Stockholm water prize, Prof Kaveh Madani was being interrogated by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, accused of being a spy for the CIA, MI6 or the Mossad.

    Today he is in exile and on Wednesday won the world’s most prestigious water prize for combining “groundbreaking research on water management with policy, diplomacy and global outreach, often under personal risk and political complexity”.

    Continue reading...

  • Perhaps the biggest surprise is that it tricks ants into moving its seeds with a scent that mimics their larvae

    Plants are superb at enticing animals to pollinate their flowers or carry off their seeds. But one plant co-opts an astonishing combination of fire, bees and ants to mastermind its reproduction.

    The South African Natal crocus, Apodolirion buchananii, has a gloriously bright white flower that emerges from the ground before its leaves appear in early spring. But the flower only blooms shortly after fire breaks out naturally in its native grasslands, leaving it standing like a beacon among the blackened grass to help lure bee pollinators, with an irresistible sweet scent that wafts through the air.

    Continue reading...

Eco Health News feeds

Eco Nature News feeds