There's a new cat rescue crew in Katikati. Photo / Rebecca Mauger
Catherine Sharp has been a cat person ever since her dad owned a fish shop where about 40 cats hung around.
Young Catherine would feed them and her father often organised for the strays to be desexed.
"I used to catch them by hand and pop them in a sack, jump on the bus and give them away to people."
Things have come full circle for Catherine — she's back looking after stray cats and kittens, and the numbers are growing.
She and Karen Mackay have started up Katikati Rescue Cats.
The kitty crew started last year — with help from Catherine's daughter Rebecca, grandson Tydence, Karen's daughter Sophie, Millie and Ying — when Karen offered to foster kittens in Katikati for Maggie Andreassen, who runs Waihi Town Cats. Maggie was getting more calls about Katikati strays and local help was required.
Maggie taught Karen to trap and Catherine came on to help.
"I moved here and I lost my cat," Catherine says. "She died a terrible way. She got attacked and ran off and came crawling back badly hurt. She had lost all mobility in her back legs and was in a very bad way, I had to put her down.
"I felt quite sorry about it so I thought I would put back to help other cats. That's when I met Karen and started to foster and ... it got a little out of control."
Karen does the trapping — sometimes with Catherine's daughter Rebecca — and quarantines cats for two weeks. She hand-rears the newborn kittens and tames the older strays. Karen is up throughout the night feeding newborn kittens at the moment.
Catherine takes the calls, deals with the public and rehomes and looks after older cats in comfy cat pens in her garage.
The two put the problem of increasing strays down to a lack desexing and abandoning cats.
"A lot are dumped. Many just move house and they don't take their cats and they are not desexed," Karen says. "I take the wild ones and I get them to the stage where people can handle them."
"When you want to have a kitten make sure you want to have a cat because it's going to grow up," Catherine says. "You've got to carry on looking after it because it is part of your family. If you move house, take it with you."
Kitten season has just started, Catherine says, which is worrying because they're getting full to the brim, with about 28 felines between them. This is close to the most they have ever had.
Katikati has cat colonies, which are worrying, Catherine says. But they have no room for extras so are currently not trapping to bring down those cat colonies.
They are concentrating on rehoming and taking care of their current numbers — including some heavily pregnant mum cats and very young kittens. The crew won't be able to take any more until January.
They need help in the form of monetary donations as well as supplies. They require donations of food, litter, blankets and towels. Donations of money is more important for vet bills (Beach Vets helps them out) and food.
"We charge $200 a cat, because we have to, but it doesn't cover our costs and we don't make any money," Karen says.
• For more information, visit Facebook page Katikati Rescue Cats. Donations to BNZ account number 02-0340-0000429-002.
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