Castellano​ | Deutsche​ | English

At the early hours of Saturday 3/4/21 the City Council of Conil de la Frontera removed all items and material (houses, beds, feeders, cleaning materials) of the established feline colony at the Club Paraiso  in El Colorado, Conil de la Frontera. This colony is a controlled colony cared for by us, Street Cats Rescue,  an NGO / cat rescue organisation. 

We are speechless in light of the action taken by the City Council. Since August 2020 we have been in contact with Conil City Council, and especially with councillor David Tamayo trying to find a solution for  the stray cats in Conil. The main focus was the ‘presupuesto participativo' ('participatory budget') of the  year 2019/2020 (€ 3,000 allocated to the sterilization of stray cats) and how to organize this TNR project. 

We handed over a list with locations of feline colonies in Conil – colonies that our NGO is looking after and other colonies that we are aware of. This list included the feline colony from the Club Paraíso. 

As of 3/4/21, no one had contacted us expressing their concern about that colony or indicating it was  causing any issues for the neighbours. On the contrary, many people volunteered to care for and feed  the cats. 

In the colony itself we put up posters educating the public about the importance of neutering cats and  explaining that it was a controlled colony. We also provided our contact details. Any potential  complaints from neighbours and/or the City Council could have been directed to us. We could have  found a joint solution for any issue, instead of the City Council moving in and taking away everything we  had installed (huts, beds etc. - paid for and built with our money and time). We would have removed  whatever was causing problems. They just never gave us a chance to do so. 

We cannot believe that Conil City Council would intervene without any prior consultation or  communication. How can a solution for the stray cats of Conil be found, if the only agency whose  responsibility should be to solve the problem - the Conil City Council - does not talk to animal protection  services like ours or with other people who dedicate their time, effort and money to help Conil's cats? 

Our NGO, Street Cats Rescue, did not establish a cat colony at this location. We only got involved last  summer when we became aware of the very the poor health the cats were in. Since then, we have been  taking care of them, we have organised 40 castrations and we ensure that the cats cause as little  annoyance for the neighbours as possible. All this work is only funded by donations, partly because the  City Council has not released the € 3,000 that were allocated for castrate stray cats in Conil in the  municipal budget of 2019/2020. 

The Club Paraíso colony is a controlled colony: the last thing we want is, that the colony causes any  nuisance for the neighbours, which is why we work very hard to ensure all the cats of the colony are  neutered. However, this is a difficult task since new cats keep appearing, probably abandoned by people  who no longer love them, but also because we have no support from the City Council. The cooperation  and communication of the Council as well as of all neighbours is essential to give the cats of this colony the life and dignity they deserve. Denouncing the colony is not the way to a humane solution for these  cats. 

We therefore ask the City Council of Conil to return the items and material they removed from this  colony and to formally confirm (in writing) the release of the money from the participatory budget of the year 2019/2020, which was allocated for the castration of stray cats in Conil.