The cats of Bemposta
We're a newly formed small non-profit in Bemposta, Portugal, and we look after the street cats of the village.
Bemposta is well known locally for its large cat population, but these cats are all street cats without proper homes, food or vet care. If you've been to this tiny village you'll have seen them: a tail rapidly vanishing under a gate, a ginger shape asleep on a warm wall at four in the afternoon. They've been part of this village for as long as anyone can remember. But these cats need to be fed, kept healthy, and stopped from having kittens that won't survive.
What we want to do
Most of our work will be TNR: trap, neuter, return. We trap a cat, take her to the vet, have her neutered, tip her ear so we can recognise her from across a street, and put her back exactly where we found her. We want to sterilise the males too, they fight and spread diseases amongst the street cats and those with homes so we want to make sure they are looked after as well.
Around that, we aim to keep their feeding points topped up with dry food and clean water, and we also want to cover the vet bills: the abscesses, the parasites, the ordinary things that are cheap to fix early and awful to leave alone.
Why we won't rehome
People ask us about rehoming which is a fair question because that is not our main aim. Most of these cats aren't pets and wouldn't be happy as pets. If we take one away then you've got a frightened animal in a cage in a strange place, and a gap in the colony that another unneutered cat will fill by the end of the season. It's far better to let them stay where they already know every wall and every friend or foe.
The important thing though is this: we're not trying to empty Bemposta of cats. We like having them here, they keep the rats down and they're part of what the village is. What we want to stop is the churn: litters born every spring that mostly don't make it, the toms fighting over territory and spreading FIV and other diseases as they go, to other street cats and the domestic population.
That's what the neutering will fix. The fighting will drop off, diseases will stop moving through the village, and the numbers will settle instead of climbing. The cats stay, there just aren't more of them every year, and the ones who are here will be healthy.
If a cat needs rehoming then we will of course try to find a home, we currently foster a few kittens that wouldn't have survived otherwise, they probably won't be heading back to the streets. But the main aim is population control. There are plenty of charities and kennels full of cats needing homes, we don't want to add to that.
Where we're heading
Bemposta is our first goal because it has a massive cat population and we're here every day seeing the cats sick or injured, without food and having endless litters. Eventually we'd like to reach more villages and the cats living in them.
How you can help
Sponsor a cat. A small amount each month towards one particular cat's food and vet care, and we'll keep you posted on how they're getting on. You can also become a general sponsor, and businesses can sponsor us too.
Partner with us. If you run a business and would like to help, whether that's regular support, services, or covering something specific like a round of neuterings, we'd love to hear from you.
Send food or supplies. Dry food, carriers, cages, blankets, vet consumables. All of it gets used.
Give us a hand. If you're nearby and you can help with trapping and transport, do get in touch.
Thank you for reading this far. It matters more than you'd think.
