Salobreña held a 3-day talk on ferral-cat colonies and how to handle them given by María Teresa Martín González, who is a lawyer specialised in animal protection.

The talk was aimed at volunteers who try to look after these stray cat populations, as well as the general public. The volunteers know just about everything there is to know about managing the town’s stray-cat population but many members of the general public usually don’t; hence the talk open to the public.

There are, for example, things that people do when they find a group of stray cats living nearby, which may seem positive, but are actually counterproductive and not recommended. One such thing is to give them scraps of left over food.

The basic method employed is CER (Captura, Esterilización y Retorno a la colonia) or Catch, Spay and Put Back, in English.

In the case of Salobreña, it’s the Asociación Jarela that carries out this task via an accord with the Town Hall. Owing to the efficiency of the work, Salobreña stands out within the comarca as an example to follow.

Anyway, the lawyer who gave the chat explained that although they are termed ‘stray cats,’ legally they are the property of the Town Hall; thus it is their responsibility to protect them.

(News: Salobreña, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)