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Cat rescuers in action
Stray cats are despised by many as they roam the streets, but animal lovers have teamed up to form an animal aid group to save their furry four-legged friends.
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We care: Taufik comforts a wounded cat in Surakarta, Central Java. Stray cats in the city are vulnerable to abuse, prompting animal lovers to form a welfare group named SAR Kucing. (JP/Kusumasari Ayuningtyas)
D
wi Lina and her son were crouching down, trying to find an abandoned cat that was hiding under a wooden stage. Dwi took out a small plate and filled it with some dry food for the cat. Feeding stray cats has been part the family’s daily routine in their hometown of Surakarta, Central Java, for the last three years.
According to Dwi, it gives her a sense of satisfaction to see the stray cats eating enough food. Her hyperactive son, who has difficulty in emotional control and learning, becomes more restrained when he comes along to feed the cats.
“He feels very happy when he comes with me to search for stray cats to feed, although he’s rather scared to offer the food directly to the animals,” Dwi said.
She doesn’t pick certain locations when feeding stray cats. She feeds the cats she finds wherever she goes. Dwi does it even as she’s taking her son to school. She always keeps dry food on the hook of her motorcycle.
“I feed cats whenever I can. In the morning I give food to roaming cats around my son’s school and he eagerly helps me, although the effect of this activity on his learning ability is not so significant,” she said.
The housewife, who earns a small income from sewing bedspreads, said she had developed compassion for starving stray cats even before she got married. In 2015, she began setting aside her money to buy several kilos of cat food that would last ten days.
“I just see it as giving alms, doing something good for living beings. Cats are animals but they’re also God’s creations,” she said.
Dwi is a member of SAR Kucing (Cat Search and Rescue), a community that focuses on rescuing stray cats in Surakarta. Before they formed the group, the members found each other by coincidence. Dwi first met Ady Pratama, another member, when she went to a pet shop in the city.
“Many of the cats sold in the animal market are in very bad condition,” Ady said.
Having nursed ailing cats since he was in junior high school, the bank employee often bought sick cats at the pet shop so they could be treated
Ady has also joined a cat lovers’ community that carries out regular sweeps around the city to gather abandoned cats for sterilization.
The joy of nursing sick cats is also shared by another member, Taufik Noval, an electronic service business owner who has since 2008 taken care of cats in poor health, which mostly come from his friends, including those in the animal aid community.
He has managed to treat and save about a hundred cats to date, some of which have been adopted by animal lovers and others of which have been sent to an animal clinic for specific handling.
Taufik said he was now more careful about choosing adopters, after having an experience of healing a stray cat with indigestion, only to find the cat dead after it was adopted.
Besides rescuing ailing stray cats, SAR Kucing also focuses on educating people to stop them from torturing cats. Stray cat sterilization is also on the agenda of the group, which allocates a monthly subsidy for ten stray cats with funds from members’ contributions and donations.
They hope the programs will better guarantee the well-being of these cats and curb the number of cat abuse cases.
“We’ve set up SAR Kucing because of the many cases of violence against cats, which need to be rescued,” Kevie Popo, a member, said.
Educating people to love their cat until the end of the cat’s life has also been a challenge. The stray cats they encounter aren’t just those of unknown lineage but also purebred cats discarded by their owners for being diseased.
“When these stray cats cry for food, they’re beaten and tortured rather than fed. Much loved when they were healthy and cute, now they’re cast away in sickness.
“It’s the enormous task of Cat SAR to rescue them and make people realize that cats are part of the ecosystem and one of God’s creations that must not be abused,” Kevie said.
