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the health crisis has doubled the stray cat population

Posted the 03/29/2021 10:25 PM

Update the 03/29/2021 10:25 PM

Video length: 3 min.

France 3

Article written by

M.Buisson, F. Blévis, C. Pary, L. Michel

France 3

France Televisions


15 million domestic cats, and as many without owners … This is an unexpected effect of the health crisis: stray felines are invading many cities because the rate of sterilization has slowed down over the past year.

On the heights of Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône), they became the guardians of the cemetery. Of stray cats found refuge in this quiet place. Here alone, they would already be a hundred. In the whole city, there are no less than 5,000. Dominique Assan-Forestier is one of the “foster mothers“, who take care of these cats.”She is going to have babies. There are going to be people“, she points out.

Dominique is not at the end of its troubles, because cats reproduce very quickly. A single pair of cats can give birth to 12 kittens in one year, which themselves will have 140 cubs in two years, which in turn will give birth to 1,700 kittens in 3 years, and more than 20,000 in 4 years.

Faced with this exponential reproduction, the only solution is sterilization. But for that, it is still necessary to succeed in catching them. This is the perilous mission of the 130 “foster mothers“, armed with traps. It is on this only network of volunteers that the SPA counts to recover the cats to be sterilized. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the association is even more overwhelmed than usual. preventing further sterilization, the cat population has doubled in Marseille.

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