THE sterilisation campaign at Quinta dos Ciprestes, Ferrel in Lagos came to a successful conclusion on Sunday, two days later than expected.
“Having said we would only work from Monday, November 27 until Friday, December 1, it became evident that we had to go on, and go on we did,” said Michelle Jones, the organiser of the campaign.
“Dr Heike Rauterberg got the campaign going on Friday and we continued to the morning of Sunday 3. Everyone who worked on the campaign are exhausted, but we know we have done a good job, a necessary job and one that could have continued for another week, or even more. We may never manage to sterilise all the animals that need to be done, but we can try.”
Michelle would like to thank the following people for their support and hard work in making the campaign the success it was:
Medivet in the UK for supplying the two competent, eager young vets, Jeremy Carr and Susan Cobb, all the vets and nurses of Clinica Veterinaria de Ferrel in Espiche, especially Dr Heike Rauterberg and Dr James Cagney in Odiaxere, for giving up their days off to come and join the vets from the UK and help sterilise as many animals as possible, Merial, Hera 2000 and Dr Carlos Sousa for donating some of the medication needed during the week, World Rent cars, for supplying transport for the vets, Owen and Val Window for supplying accommodation for the vets, the Refugio dos Burros for the loan of a spay kit and tattoo machine, Lis and Colin Wells and Francyne and Gerard Pare for trapping and transporting colonies of cats all over the Lagos area to and from the clinic and Gerry Chambers was also on hand to help ferry the cats.
Thank you also to Richard and Cara Lawrence for doing the shopping and lunch every day and to everyone who supplied cat boxes, traps and monetary support. You have hopefully raised enough money to pay all the medication and supply costs and any money left will continue to help the sterilisation programme that is so obviously necessary.
During the campaign, 10 dogs and 157 cats were sterelised. Of the cats, at least 90 were female – imagine an extra 90 cats giving birth to at least two litters of possibly six kittens next year. It won’t happen with these cats but there are another 90 out there that it will happen to.
“Please sterilise your animal and, if you don’t have one, persuade someone else to sterilise theirs. Make the pledge in 2007 to sterilise at least one animal. Remember prices vary and the cost of a cat sterilisation is anything between 50 and 150 euros. Not many people can afford that and so they depend on campaigns like ours, donations from people like you, or the local charity shops to help them. Donate your unwanted items to the charity shops, offer monetary support if you can, trap a cat and get it to a vet if you are able to.”
Don’t forget that Christmas is coming and animals need their Christmas lunch too. Drop a tin or two into your local charity shop to help feed an animal this month.
