GreekIslandGirl wrote:cyprusgrump wrote:GreekIslandGirl wrote:V-War wrote:Hi all,
Thanks for you replies
I live in an outskirt of Paphos now, problem is that 4 weeks ago my cat got shot.
Many of my neighbours are hunters, but unfortunately I do not know who did this.
Luckily and amazingly the bullet just stopped 0.2 inch before his spine. Saw it on the computer xray at the vet.
And he recovered in 1 week. Unbelieveable.
But now I am scared to let him out again for it must have been somebody here in the neighbourhood.
We are now considering moving because of this.
Vivian
Little known fact is that UK policy on "feral" wildlife is pretty terminal:UK pest controlBecause they are classed as vermin, feral cats ("nuisance cats") may legally be controlled by shooting by the landowner or his agents. They many also be live-trapped (using human box traps) and euthanized. More rarely, a feral cat is shot by a trained pest control operative because it is untrappable and there is no safe alternative.
That's apart from culling badgers, and hunting foxes or stags with dogs.
Cyprus is pretty tame by comparison; but as always, UK policy is to downplay negativeness. So if you felt safe in the UK - your pets should be even safer in Cyprus where cats have been mollycoddled for eons.
The OP is not discussing "feral" cats, but the family pet...
Taking your normal "the UK is worse" position contributes nothing to the discussion, nor does mentioning badgers, foxes or stags....
Not worse - but certainly not better as you seem to think. But some people are pretty verbal at condemning others so I just redress the balance.
Feral cats, "nuisance cats", strays or pets off their home patch can be hard to distinguish. A trap is a trap!
The reason you see so many cats in Cyprus, congregating around harbours, restaurants etc is precisely because there is a reluctance to cull, such as regularly happens in other countries, to keep down the number of deer, pigeons or badgers, for example.
we had a situation two years back where we ended up with 10 or 12 kittens plus one female in our close neighborhood.(we knew the female as "mother cat": she was feral and had several litters each year to the local toms) . The mayor put out a trap as they congregated in his yard. The only cat he trapped was one of our pet moggies which I rescued. So traps do not distinguish the feral and the pet. Nor does poison.
We neuter all of our cats so they do not add to the population.
(One of mother cat's last off-spring now lives next door as a pet and visits us to eat!)
