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Cat Shelter Campaign
TURUNC
Turunç is the next holiday village along the
coast from Içmeler and is becoming more popular
each year with Europeans.
I was contacted by Allison who lives and works
there with her husband in tourism. She told me
of the plight of the cat population
there and asked if I could help.
I was happy to help because being the closest
village to Içmeler, this meant that the locals
would round up and 'dumping' their
unwanted cats in Içmeler. Thanks to the
persistent work of Steffannie Goebels of the
Aqua Hotel and Hulya Atay a resident of
Içmeler, the sterilisation program is succeeding
in Içmeler therefore it would be logical to
start a campaign in Turunç and try
and stop the 'dumping' of cats in Içmeler.
At the end of September before I became infirmed
with a slipped disk, Allison's husband picked me
up and I spent the day in Turunç
catching un-neutered males for sterilization.
This was all I could do at that time.
Whilst in Turunç I spoke with a Mr Ali Fidan who
hopes to be the next Mayor of Turunç. I told him
of my plans to find vets from
Europe to come to Turkey to help with
sterlization of cats. He immediately offered
accommodation, great!!! First step completed .
. .
Now we have to band together some locals who are
willing to feed and control the cat colonies and
also catch the cats during the
vets visits.
We don't believe in going in, operating on the
cats and them leaving them to fend for
themselves after their sterilization.
A year later Ali Fidan had become the mayor of
Turunc and I went to see him. I decided that to
wait for holiday vets to come once
a year would not be a solution. We had to do
something ourselves. I had the idea that the vet
of Marmaris municipality could come
once a month to Turunc. When I spoke to the
mayor of this plan he was happy to agree. We
would have tip boxes in the village to
raise money for the medicines, posters
advertising the campaign. Ali Fidan then
contacted the mayor of Marmaris Ali Acar asking
for his vet. It was agreed. A week later we had
our first neutering day. The vet of Marmaris and
myself headed off for Turunc with
the help of Belediye workers in Turunc we
sterilized 22 cats.
During the next couple of months we sterilized
another 50 cats. At this time a Scottish lady
called Fiona settled in Turunc with
her husband and successfully took over leaving
me free to return to Marmaris and its problems.
TURUNC is now totally in control of its cat
numbers. |
