anisha francis
anisha@herald-goa.com
ALDONA: Sonia Smart came to Goa from Nepal around 10 years ago, with five cats and one child. She’s never left since then. Sonia cannot plan holidays or even day trips, because she has 160 cats waiting for her at home. “I think it’s 160, I’m scared to count,” says Sonia, who runs Cat Sanctuary -Goa, in Olaulim’s Koppel Vado, near Aldona. The sanctuary is an old Goan house with a massive garden, tall trees and shrubbery everywhere.
Cats of all shapes, sizes and markings; most of them bushy-tailed, bright-eyed and frisky; others a bit worse for the wear, some missing limbs or eyes, lounge everywhere. There are cats up on the trees, some basking belly-up in the sun, kittens wrestling and meowing at each other – and even inside the house, cats everywhere, tame and welcoming.
Sonia began “collecting” cats around 2015, when she noticed there were dozens of starving cats at the Aldona market. “People abandon kittens, dump pregnant cats at the market because they believe they will get food there. They don’t – they survive on garbage, get sick or get killed by dogs or vehicles,” she says. She began feeding the cats there and taking home any small kittens or injured cats that she knew would not survive. Soon, cats began finding their way to her from markets and dump yards across Goa.
They started with setting up seven feeding stations at different areas within the market and once the cats started trusting them, managed to get them all sterilised at Worldwide Veterinary Services (WVS). “With all those cats sterilised and many of them at home with, the number of stray cats at the market have now gone down drastically. Yes, people still abandon kittens here all the time, but we’ve made a dent,” says Sonia.
She, along with six staffers, most of them from Chhattisgarh and two from Nepal run the sanctuary, where they care for and serve 160 lucky cats, who have found a second lease of life with Sonia.
“Every day at 7 am, the staff arrives, and we let the cats out into the garden. We keep them all secured inside the house at night to protect them from predators. Then, we cook their meals. The morning menu includes fish bars, which include pumpkin, carrots, and spinach cooked with coconut oil and organic turmeric. Once we finish breakfast, the house is deep cleaned, litter boxes refreshed. In the afternoon, some of the sickly cats get a meal of wet food, which arrives through food donations, and at 7 pm, we serve the entire lot another meal of fresh chicken and veggies—we buy about nine kilos daily, with some amounts of chicken liver and heart. Their diet is high protein, no rice,” Sonia rattles off, when asked about her typical day.
Cat Sanctuary isn’t a registered NGO but they receive funding from kind-hearted visitors and Good Samaritans. Anyone who loves cats or is curious about them is welcome to visit the green space. “We utilise social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to share our work and raise awareness,” Sonia says, adding that the medical expenses for the older cats, many of whom she adopted when she first came to Goa, can be significant. “We deal with various health issues, including liver and kidney troubles, and many need regular medication, blood tests, scaling, etc,” she says. Dr Anisha Lobo, a veterinary doctor visits once a week to check up on the cats and an animal healer, an ex-physiotherapist from Siolim, also visits regularly.
Sonia laments that all rules, welfare policies and sterilisation programmes are only drawn up with stray dogs in mind, because they are the more visible, obvious “problem”. “The government says the rules and policies are also meant to include cats, but why is it not mentioned,” she asks.
Spay and neuter
to save cat lives
Urging people to neuter their pet cats before they reproduce, Sonia says, “Irresponsible cat owners take the easy solution out, they want instant gratification—put the kittens in a plastic bag and throw them in the river or leave them at the fish market, without thinking about the consequences. There’s a significant cognitive dissonance at play; many don’t realize the impact of their actions. I put up posts on my Facebook, announcing that I’ll be taking cats for neutering twice a month, but why does it not reach the nameless, faceless serial dumpers who abandon kittens every six months? Seems like we will have to go door to door to spread awareness, to be able to reach each person and convince them to sterilise their cats.