The stray cat population in Muscat is growing and everyone agrees something needs to be done. But what is the way forward? Deeba Hasan, Kate Ginn and Adam Hurrell investigate and find fur is flying
As the sun begins to dip low in the sky and the temperatures cool, the twilight population of Muscat starts to appear. Perched on rubbish bins or rummaging through their contents for food, these residents are a ubiquitous sight across the city’s residential neighbourhoods come dusk. Not everyone in the community, however, necessarily welcomes these particular dwellers. Street cats or “bin cats” are growing in numbers, the result of a policy that leaves them unchecked, free to reproduce and thus swell the feline ranks even more.
How to solve the problem is a dilemma that has divided the community. One camp favours elimination of what they see as a social nuisance; scavenging pests that need to be eradicated, while the other side is pushing for the introduction of a trap, neuter and release (TNR) scheme that has been successful in other GCC countries. “Population control of street animals is a very complicated issue, not just in Oman, but all over the world, hence the volume of discussion and research going on,” says Asta Parker, who worked as a vet in Oman and is currently doing a MSc degree in International Animal Welfare, Ethics and Law at the University of Edinburgh, with the aim of starting dialogue on animal welfare issues in the GCC region. “Here in Oman, the street animal population has been able to breed unrestricted, adapting effectively to increasing urbanisation by scavenging and intermingling with unneutered pet animals that are allowed to roam free or are dumped.” Currently, there aren’t any measures to deal with the strays in the city, although Muscat Municipality is reportedly looking into it. Y tried to contact the Municipality this week to comment on the stray cat problem, but no one was available to speak to us.
In the meantime, thousands of cats continue to roam at will, churning out yet more kittens. In the past, the solution for stray wadi dogs was to shoot them. Y reported in June last year about the practice after our former photographer found Royal Oman Police officers shooting dogs near his house. Dr Elke Heitz, owner and head veterinarian at Al Qurum Veterinary Clinic, is an advocate of TNR. “It’s the most humane way to do it. It’s the only long-term solution. We don’t euthanise healthy animals,” she explains. On average, Dr Heitz spays 70 to 80 stray cats a month, sometimes paid for out of her own pocket. The clinic also helps rehome rescued strays and just this week, seven cats were dumped on their doorstep. Dr Heitz says regulations should be brought in requiring every cat owner in the country to neuter their pet. Around two years ago, the clinic had been in talks with Muscat Municipality about a TNR scheme, but it fell by the wayside until recently. “The Municipality has started to rethink the idea, although nothing is going to happen in the near future,” says Dr Heitz. “They just need to do it. Muscat is a modern city and they need to start looking at things like this seriously.” Funding remains an issue. The cost to neuter a cat varies, but it’s about RO20-25 for females, and between RO10-13 for males. “TNR does work, and that has been proven elsewhere in the world, but only through well-organised, continuous and wide-reaching efforts,” agrees Parker. “Ideally, the entire urban area must be targeted systematically and regularly, as a pair of unneutered cats can generate hundreds of offspring in a relatively short period of time.”
Omani Paws, an animal rescue group founded in January 2014 by Nada al Moosa, helps fund the neutering of stray cats. “Our focus is on the TNR approach to control the increasing population of stray animals. Besides this, we also rescue animals, specifically orphaned puppies and kittens that are in critical situations. We provide medical care if required and find homes for them,” al Moosa tells Y. Al Moosa wants to be registered with the Ministry of Social Development, after which she has plans to spread to other parts of Oman. A big part of their work is raising awareness of animal welfare in Oman through social media and by attending events, using their network of volunteers to spread the word.
Volunteers include Krystal Brown, who has adopted many pets from a young age. When she was little, she didn’t get much assistance from the community, but she seems happy with the launch of Omani Paws. “I got to meet many like-minded people and together we are doing a great job. “We as volunteers are always ready with food pouches so that whenever we see a starving animal, we’re able to feed it immediately.”
Volunteers also actively take part in the TNR programme, rescue animals, provide them with medical care through donations and help to find homes. “We have traps that we provide people with so that they can catch street cats who multiply quite often,” says Brown. “We neuter the male cats and spay the females, thus resulting in no reproduction. Finally, we release them back into their respective territories.” She has managed to spay and neuter about six cats and rescue three kittens in her area.
Most of the animals living on Muscat’s streets are descended from strays – Arabian Maus – but there are also a number of abandoned pets. People discard them for different reasons: unwanted gifts, adult cats that have lost their “cuteness”, or are too expensive to be shipped home by expats, who dump them on the streets when they leave the country. One story recounted on social media recently tells of a tenant who moved out of her apartment and simply left her two cats in the common hallway to fend for themselves. “People in Oman need to be educated about caring for cats. Yes, kittens are very cute, but they grow into cats, which are then left to fend for themselves on the streets,” says Barbra Ward-Young, an expat and cat owner. “In The Wave, we have a real problem with neglected cats. They fight all night, come into gardens, foul our outdoor furniture and try to come inside. It’s not the cat’s fault, it’s the irresponsible people who abandon them when they are no longer kittens. A pet is for life.”
Facebook pages of groups such as Omani Paws, Cat-astrophe and Dog Tails are full of photos of rescued stray kittens and cats needing new homes, often with heartbreaking stories. Abandoned or orphaned kittens are tortured by kids, adult cats are hit with bricks or run over and there have been reports of poisoning. “We often get calls about cats and dogs being in dire conditions,” says al Moosa. “We pick them up and get them the medical attention they need and later on find them homes or release them.” Asta Parker, who worked at Tafani Veterinary Clinic in Muscat, was right on the frontline. “Working as a vet in Oman can be very disheartening. On a regular basis, I was seeing animals that had dreadful wounds or conditions that were causing the animals great pain. I saw a lot more trauma cases here than I would do in the UK and I estimated about 10 times more fractures per year than in my last practice in the UK. It felt like we were constantly fire fighting, but never actually at a stage of getting the flames under control in terms of the numbers of animals that needed care. However many animals I treated, I knew there were still thousands out there that needed help.”
Cultural divides mean that some see cats as potential pets, whereas others view them as a menace. One person who believes a firm hand is needed told Y: “The cats running all around are pests, like rodents. “They hang around bins and are dirty and diseased. I have children and don’t want them coming into contact with these cats. I worry they could attack or scratch them – the cats should be removed permanently.” Such radical solutions would work, but at what cost to Oman’s global reputation? Other countries in the region, including the UAE and Jordan, have taken great steps of late to improve animal welfare. Cultural taboos have been broken and attitudes shifted. “All over the world, attitudes to pet animals are changing, not just in Oman,” agrees Parker. “The increasing dialogue on animal welfare issues throughout the world over the last three decades is a generational thing, traceable back to the late 1960s. However, human compassion for animals has always been present, regardless of culture or religion.”
Whatever the end solution is, there seems to be a uniform agreement that a well-funded and organised government-backed approach, must be implemented. “To combat the numbers of feral animals in Oman in the long run, a concerted educational programme and government initiative has to be put in place,” says Parker. “This change, however, must come from and be guided by local and national government. The volunteer community working to improve the lives of animals in Oman can only do so much. We are able and willing to help and support the authorities here in their efforts at improving animal welfare in Oman, but we cannot do it for them.”
Our kitten saga
Heather Duncan, a well-known blogger who lives in Muscat, writes about how two stray kittens were left abandoned in a box outside her house in Azaiba
When two tiny kittens are dumped outside your house do you take them into your home and raise them or leave them where you found them and let nature take its course? That is the very dilemma I was faced with two weeks ago.
I had no idea how long they’d been outside for or where their mother and other litter mates might be; all I knew was that they were weak and dehydrated. I couldn’t just let them die like that. The vet advised that, as they were only two weeks old, the best course of action would be to release them back onto the street and let nature take its course. They may have survived; then again, they could’ve just as easily fallen victim to a hungry wadi dog or been hit by a car like our last cat, Cooper. Either way, I couldn’t leave the fate of such small kittens entirely up to chance; the mothering instinct kicked in and I took the kittens into my home and introduced them to the family.
Naïvely, I had no idea how much work is involved in rearing kittens. They must be fed with a bottle of specially formulated kitten milk every three hours, cleaned and massaged like their mother would do after feeds and then comes the not so cute bit – helping them pass waste. It’s messy and unpleasant, but constipated kittens can die very quickly, so it’s just something that needs done. With a sweet personality and beautiful looks, I would love to keep them as my own pets but, like most of us, I have my own commitments which don’t allow more animals into the fold – we already have a dog, two cats, two turtles and a nine-month-old baby.
For now, the kittens, named Shake and Bake [pictured with Heather], are living in my house and I am hand rearing them with the help of my husband until they are bigger and healthier, when I will hopefully find them a new owner. Failing that, they will be neutered and put back outside to fend for themselves. Personally, I agree with the trap, neuter and release idea, as gradually we would see fewer and fewer stray animals on the streets of Muscat.
Cat control
Stray and feral animals are not a problem unique to Oman. It occurs throughout the region and
each country has its own way of dealing with them
In Jordan, for example, Queen Rania patronised an animal charity that is funded by the government. The Humane Centre for Animal Welfare (HCAW) was established in September 2000 as a Jordanian non-profit organisation to promote animal welfare issues by providing professional veterinary care, raising animal welfare awareness and by conducting educational programmes in co-operation with teaching institutions. They not only care for strays, but they also help working animals whose owners often can’t afford the correct treatment and care. The charity also works closely with government schools and has set up over 80 animal welfare clubs that teach children the importance of correct animal care.
In Dubai, there is the Bin Kitty Collective. This is a Facebook group that acts as a forum for people who want to help the city’s homeless, sick or injured cats. They also help with fostering and adoption, hosting special adoption events where people are encouraged to come and interact with the animals in need of rehoming.
Also in the UAE, this time in Umm Al Quwain, a woman has been granted land to build a rescue home for more than 100 dogs. Amirah William, who shares her home with abused and abandoned dogs, has been given a plot of land from the municipality to build a much-needed shelter. She still has to raise money to fund construction of the centre, but it is a positive step forward. She was reported in local media as saying, “The municipality wants to create an official name for the shelter and change the name of our group from SOS Animal Rescue Umm Al Quwain to UAQ Centre for Stray Dogs and Cats, because it is starting to help our group.”
The problem of these homeless animals is by no means unique to Oman. Other GCC and Middle Eastern countries experience it too and it is hoped that the issue can be overcome through sharing experiences across the region.
Top Cat
Y’s deputy editor Kate Ginn, who rescued a stray kitten from the street outside the office in Muscat 18 months ago, tells her story
When I look at my cat Sabco (named after the company I work for, SABCO Media), I can’t help recalling the tiny ball of fur that I first encountered. In fact, it was his noise that first attracted me. His desperate distinctive wailings for help, the survival instinct kicking in, could hardly be ignored and certainly not by an expat fresh off the plane from London. The little bundle of black and white was small enough to sit on my palm – not that I touched him as he was covered in fierce looking ringworm – but such was his gutsy desire to live that he had found his way to our office block in Seeb and the restaurants below where he was trying to lick water dripping from an open pipe. For three days, I watched him stumble around, weak and confused, mewing for food and attention.
Against my better judgement and that of my friends who warned me not to get involved, I picked him up in a blanket and took him to the vet. The vet, of course, had seen it all before, just another sick Omani kitten passing through the surgery with a teary expat in tow. Eighteen months on, Sabco and I are still together. I wasn’t sure when I picked him up that I wanted to keep him, I just wanted to rescue him. And this is part of the problem. Too many kittens or cats are being picked up by well-meaning expats who often don’t think it through. Most keep their finds, but some leave the animals with the vets to deal with, and therefore pay for, or simply put them back on the streets once the vet has done their job.
I’ve been told by several people, including one involved in animal welfare in Oman, that it would’ve been kinder in the long run if I’d left him on the streets and let nature take its course (he would’ve died within a few days had I not stepped in). And if the trap, neuter and release scheme happens, then Sabco would of course have never been born.
I could never give up my boy, though. Sabco has proved to be quite a character with a real personality of his own. He loves adventure, chasing foil balls and lazing in the sun. He still has a fascination with water and drinking it – a legacy of the kitten days when he was dehydrated – and is great company, when he deigns to sit on my lap that is.
Do I regret picking him up? There are times when I have a brief pang at the thought of the commitment but overall, no I don’t. I have realised there are just too many cats or needy animals to help in Oman and I can’t singlehandedly save them all. I walk or drive past street cats or kittens in precarious positions every day, but my heart has hardened – it has to – and I pass on by.
In my view, we need a concerted effort from the authorities to join up with animal welfare groups already in existence and work together for the greater good. It can happen if the will is there.
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