Suspected abandoned pedigree cats found on St John's Island

Leong Wai Kit Channel NewsAsia 22 Oct 13;

SINGAPORE: The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) was at St John's Island to conduct a neutering exercise to help contain a growing stray cat population there. It came across 15 pedigree cats.

The group said the fact they are purebreds suggests they were probably abandoned.

SPCA had carried out a "trap, neuter and release" programme over the weekend. 31 cats were neutered.

Corinne Fong, SPCA executive director, said: "A lot of them were still unsterilised. We knew that we would have to do it again sooner or later.

"So it was fortuitous that a passing pleasure craft - they dock their boats along those islands quite a fair bit - reported back to us that there were many stray cats and kittens on the island."

The team came across 80 stray cats in addition to 15 pedigrees.

SPCA said this could be a result of owners leaving purebreds there.

One pedigree can cost more than S$1500.

Ms Fong said: “If you're talking about Ragdolls and Russian Blues and Persians, they are not there like local cats. I can understand if there are local cats there. But these are purebreds. What are they doing on the island to begin with?

"We don't know when they were abandoned, no one can tell because it's a fairly big island. There're a lot of forested areas and many unmanned beach fronts. Nobody can say.”

Some animal experts said they are not surprised if people were dumping animals on the islands.

Louis Ng, executive director of Animal Concerns Research & Education Society, said: “You see on Kusu Island, a lot of people are abandoning their tortoises, turtles and terrapins on the island as well, so people are doing this.

“We're going offshore and we're looking at abandonment not just of dogs and cats, but of a lot of exotic species - the green iguanas, the star tortoises. People buy them illegally and they release them back in the wild.”

Mr Ng added: "Obviously it is cruel to abandon pets. With the cats in particular - they have formed an emotional bond with (the owner) and abandoning them is cruel, unethical as well.

"And I think if they're abandoned on St John's Island, we must bear in mind that cats are territorial so it's on an island with limited space where, you know, unlike mainland where they can run to somewhere else. When they're all trapped on an island there are welfare issues.”

The Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore told Channel NewsAsia it will investigate all feedback on animal cruelty - including pet abandonment.

Those found guilty face up to a S$10,000 fine and a year's jail.

SPCA sent a team of 23 people, including full-time staff and volunteers, as well as lecturers and students from Temasek Polytechnic's vet technology course. The SPCA also brought along surgical equipment and some 15 cages for the three-day project.

The project involved trapping the stray cats to be neutered. They also had to sterilise the cages before and after neutering the cats. The neutered cats would have to go without food and water for about 10 hours, as part of the procedure. They were released on Monday.

SPCA conducted four trips to the island in 2011. During that time, SPCA neutered about 70 cats.

- CNA/xq