300 stray cats trapped weekly: Qatar

300 stray cats are trapped every week
Gulf Times, Qatar - Jul 10, 2006

ABOUT 300 cats are being trapped a week, as part of the ongoing stray cats control project in Qatar, project committee member Dr Yusry Radwan has told Arabic daily Arrayah.
Dr Radwan indicated that the Qatari drive has been hailed by animal experts of international organisations, environmental activists and the Qatar Society for Cats which monitors the implementation of the project.
“Doctors working on the project are given special training and they have been provided with state-of-the-art imported equipment.”
About the means adopted for trapping stray cats, Dr Radwan said they never went for a random-selection approach. “We are now very familiar with the habits of the cats, and we know they gather around the rubbish bins twice a day – at dawn and dusk,” he said, observing that trappers use a locally manufactured device, in which a piece of fish is put as a bait to trap the cat.
“Cats become wild once trapped. We use a special type of cloth, recommended by international experts, for covering the trap to help calm down the frenzied cats.”
After the cats are captured, Dr Radwan said they are held in “comfortable” clinics where they are served healthy food. They are observed at the cat care centre for 24 hours to determine the health status of each cat.
Asked about the reasons behind this 24-hour wait, he said “it also helps us to restore pets to their owners”.
Dr Radwan has called upon those who own cats to put a collar round their necks so that “we can differentiate stray cats from the domestic ones”.
“If we found a pregnant cat or one with a litter, we take them back to the same area where they were trapped and release them there,” he said, adding that only cats with incurable diseases are put to sleep.
Dr Radwan said cats are “euthanised” using very “humane” methods. “First we inject a medicine to calm down the cat and then a lethal dose is administered,” he said.
On the surgeries performed to neuter the cats, he said that while the testicles were removed from the tomcats, the ovary and uterus are removed from female cats. “The operation takes one minute in the case of male cats and five minutes in case of female cats,” he explained, adding that the neutered animals are earmarked so that they are not trapped again.
Speaking on recuperation, Dr Radwan said that it takes only one day for the male cat to recover while female cats takes up to three days. The cats are cared for in special rooms, equipped for this purpose, during this period “, he said.
On the future of the project, Dr Radwan said that a joint study would be conducted in association with Qatar University. “According to unconfirmed studies, a particular cat disease is linked to leukaemia in children.”
Dr Radwan said that no cat has been found to be infected with toxoplasma, which can cause abortion in women.

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