Some of the kittens at Cats Protection who are looking for homes. Pictures by Robin Crossley.
WIGHT LIVINGTHEIR cute fluffy faces adorn countless chocolate box lids.
They peer out of Wellington boots at Christmas, they lay on their backs and play with balls of wool and their playful natures are a source of constant amusement.
Yet for all the endless entertainment kittens and cats provide, their burgeoning numbers are proving to be an increasing headache for animal charities on the IW.
Last week, the County Press reported how the Island’s RSPCA Centre in Godshill had been forced to make five staff redundant.
At the same time, the RSPCA has been forced to limit its help to emergency cases only, putting huge pressure on it and other IW-based feline charities as they battle to look after the scores of kittens that are being abandoned on the Island.
Nobody has yet been spotted disposing of their unwanted cats in wheelie bins but there are fears people will feel forced to take more extreme measures, including drowning their pets.
Cat charities say the feline population explosion is the largest they have seen for nearly a decade and, worryingly, shows no signs of slowing down.
All the charities are sending out a clear message to Island residents who own cats: have your pet neutered as there is simply not enough space available to look after abandoned or unwanted animals.
Just last week, a box containing five kittens was dumped outside a block of flats in Newport, one of a number of heartbreaking tales of cats and kittens literally being 'thrown away’ by owners who cannot or just refuse to cope.
Mel Read, manager of Cats Protection, based in Ryde, told the County Press its rescue centre was 'bursting at the seams’ with staff working round the clock to hand-rear abandoned kittens.
She said: "Literally from the end of March, it has been non-stop. We have been working at our capacity for weeks and weeks. Our waiting list just grows and grows. People don’t understand you only have so many spaces to put cats in. We have to make people aware there is not the demand this year for cats and we just can’t re-home kittens."
If you thought the charity’s responsibilities ended with just feeding the cats and giving them a bed for the night — well, think again.
Each cat the centre rescues has to be neutered, wormed and given injections with the bill for each animal coming in at a minimum of £150.
Normally, Cats Protection finds new homes for around 500 cats a year. But the home has been filled to its 108 capacity for a staggering 80 weeks.
Animal charities are at a loss to explain the surge in cat numbers on the Island. Tentative theories include the current tough economic climate, which is forcing people to abandon pets they can no longer afford to keep.
But the bulge in kitten numbers could also be due to people deliberately allowing their cats to have litters and then trying to sell the kittens for cash.
That’s certainly the theory of Feline Welfare’s Nikki Hazelgrove, who reports seeing large numbers of kittens for sale on websites — with some owners advertising on multiple occasions over the past few years, meaning that they are deliberately allowing their pets to become pregnant for cash.
Nikki said: "It is just indiscriminate breeding. The average price they are charging is around £40 and that is without any health checks. People are breeding kittens for money unfortunately.
"They are adding greatly to the problem. The waiting lists for all rescue centres on the IW is so long now. I had two new ones come in just this morning.
"It is really frustrating for us."
The huge rise in kitten numbers has meant the day-to-day work of finding new homes for cats, which for any number of reasons their owners can no longer look after, has been put under increasing pressure.
At the moment, Nikki’s charity is caring for 16 cats with some in foster families and the shelter in Parkhurst is bulging at the seams.
She added: "You do have a lot of people around who should never have had an animal in the first place."
And it’s not just ordinary 'moggies’ which are being abandoned. According to Nikki, even pedigree cats, costing many hundreds of pounds, are finding their way into rescue centres.
RSPCA IW chairman, Ken Rivers, added: "There are kittens everywhere and it is simply because people are not neutering their cats. It is a very worrying situation. We don’t put animals down. They have to be dangerous or seriously ill. It does mean we end up with an awful lot more cats than we want."
He added: "Our message is get your cat neutered. Nobody wants to see kittens drowned and you do hear these awful stories. If you don’t put kittens down and you can’t find homes for them, the problem has to be stopped at source."