2009 Calendars for a good cause

2009 calendars for sale - from Project Kuching Coast:



The sales' proceeds will go towards efforts to sterilise, medicate and feed the stray cats at "kuching coast". :)

Click here for more details.

Homeless cats of Beijing

These poor, displaced cats are so lovely : http://www.beijingcat.org/

Pidan
Tofu (right)

Mr Bob

The Story of Beijing Cat

Formerly known as “Cat Friends,” Beijing Cat was founded by Scarlett Zhang, and since 2001 has re-homed over 100 cats in happy adoptive families.

Through our small network of volunteers, we work together to rescue and rehome stray cats in Beijing.

All of our cats seeking adoption are healthy, dewormed, neutered and vaccinated. They are also friendly, with sweet personalities, and suitable for adoption.

If you are kind and responsible, have a stable income and can make a long-term commitment to bringing a new member into your family forever (including bringing him or her back to your home country if/when you leave China), then there are many wonderful cats here waiting for your love!

Times Online
February 25, 2008

Cats are out as Beijing starts to preen itself
by Jane Macartney in Beijing

No one knows exactly how many homeless cats roam the city’s streets and alleys but the Capital Animal Welfare Assocation says 160,000 to 200,000 animals at the very minimum are at risk from the new campaign.

Strays are already being caught and transported to a holding pen in the suburban county of Changping. Animal welfare activists described seeing the cats crowded together in cages the size of a microwave oven. They estimated almost 90 per cent of the animals were clearly diseased and many had been neutered with rudimentary surgery that had led to infections. The order states that strays still unclaimed after 14 days will be “dealt with”.

Qin Xiaona, head of the animal welfare association, told The Times: “This is nothing less than torture. And the situation is much worse than this for dogs.”

The drive was announced by the city’s agricultural bureau director at a recent meeting of the municipal parliament. He ordered that all stray cats must be caught and taken off the streets before the end of June to ensure the city looks its best for the two-week-long Olympic games starting on August 8.

Mrs Qin said: “The officials said they did not want the Olympic athletes to see a single stray animal. This is partly because the Chinese care so much about face.”

Orders have already been sent out to the neighbourhood committees that are responsible for maintaining order and implementing government directives throughout the 18 districts of Beijing. Mrs Qin described seeing committee officials holding meetings in the Eastern District in the city centre and calling on residents to round up stray cats.

She said: “Cats are beneficial to the community in a city like Beijing because they catch rats. If people catch all the stray cats then can you imagine how terrible the problem of rats could become?” This newest campaign to empty the city streets of roaming animals does not include stray dogs since these have been banned in Beijing for many years and are regularly cleared out by the police.

The animal welfare activists said it would be extremely difficult to rid Beijing of the cats that live wild in the many nooks and crannies of the ancient alleys that criss-cross the old centre of the capital. But this is not the first time that the capital has declared war on an animal.

In the 1950s, Mao Zedong launched the “Four Pests” campaign when citizens were ordered to kill flies, mosquitoes, rats and sparrows. The mass slaughter of sparrows had unintended consequences, resulting in an explosion of the locust population.

Mrs Qin said her group had offered to work with the government in case of any campaign to ensure the city’s cats were handled in a humane manner, but their proposals had been ignored.

“I have a question for the International Olympic Committee and the athletes: Do they feel that they can take part comfortably in the Olympics if the price of the games is the lives of so many animals?”

She also had fighting words for the organisers. “We Beijing residents are ready to go without electricity, without water, without cars if the Games can be a success. But we are opposed to an Olympics that will cost the lives of animals. We feel this is tragic.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/more_sport/article3427996.ece

Wishlist for Cats of East Coast Park

If you would like to help these community cats whose outdoor home will be torn down soon, please visit http://kucingcoast.blogspot.com to leave a message.



Dear everyone,

Hello! Hope this email finds you well. Thank you all for your kind support for the cats in the park.

Some updates on the status of our sterilisation project in the park. The majority of cats in the boat storage areas have been sterilised (a total of 190 cats sterilised thus far in the park). Unfortunately they will be losing their homes come June 2008 when the boat storage areas will be torn down. We have been monitoring, and will continue to monitor the situation on the ground, together with our feeders, to make sure that the cats are safe and fine during the transition period.

Meanwhile, one way forward is to ensure that the cats are well-fed away from food areas to minimise complaints and ensure that the population is kept stable through continued aggresive sterilisation. At the same time, we are target to sterilise cats at the Marine Cove and Lifeguard areas where there are still quite a number of unsterilised cats. We will be supplementing the cat food supply of feeders in the park by providing them with cat food so that the cats are well-fed.

As such, for the purposes of sterilisation and feeding, we have come up with a wishlist for the cats, with sterilisation targets to be reached by end of this month, and food supplies needed for the cats the month of March:-

1) 20 sterilisation slots ($25 for a male, $40 for a female) + boarding ($15 per cat) - $1100 (assuming female cats)
2) 4 rounds of trapping ($70 per session) - $280
3) 3 bags of 6.8kg cat biscuits ($25 per bag) - $75
4) 40 cans of wet canned food ($1 per can) - $40

Kindly let me have the heads-up if you would like to sponsor any one of the above items, either in whole, or in part, and I will inform you about details of the sponsorship. We will also provide you with an update by mid-April on how your sponsorship has gone towards helping the cats. Pls also feel free to let me know if you have any queries.

Hope that everyone would chip in to support our furry friends in East Coast Park. Thanks!

Best regards,
Nona Neo
--
Cats of East Coast Park
http://kucingcoast.blogspot.com

Tagged

I've been tagged, for whatever reason. Since being grown up, I've never been a believer of chain letters, chain mails or even chunky, clunky gold chains. While I sympathise with and applaud at the worthy cause, I'm too lazy to do extra work just because someone tagged me, nor do I want to burden other folks by tagging them, as they would then have to go find some other folks to tag...and not everyone has someone else to tag, even if they don't mind doing the chain tagging thing.

So, refer to here if you like.

Yummy treats are here! :-)

Phyllis and hubby delivered the yummy treats this evening. I ordered the pineapple tarts and kueh balu (which my father likes).

Like Mr Pineapple Papa aka Papa Porky (who's willing to trade his cats Muffin and Kootoo Monster for tubs of Phyllis' pineapple tarts) said, the pineapple tart fillings can be addictive. :)

I like how the tart pastry has kind of merged with the filling, giving it a slightly chewy texture. Best of all, they're not oily or overly sweet, so I can feel less guilty if I overdose on them! *grin*

Here's to a (pineapple) fruitful Christmas holidays and the new year too!

Happy Holidays!


Pineapple Tarts

Kueh Balu

Cats of East Coast Park - fund-raising

Here's an appeal for donations and contributions from Cats of East Coast Park. The donated funds will be use to sterilise the many (and still breeding) stray cats at ECP.

Within a short span of 2 months, these young folks, aided by the support of well-wishers and the SPCA, have managed to sterilised 43 out of the many stray cats at ECP. It's a remarkable and admirable feat, to say the least, especially when these youngsters are still studying and haven't got much financial resource to begin with.

Nonetheless, they tried their best, and did a great job so far. I think the least we can do is show some support for them. I urge readers to contribute in any way you can as a show of encouragement for what they're doing. Thank you. :)


Some of the stray cats trapped by them for sterilisation:

Fund-raising for Phyllis' non-profit cattery

Post taken from Vegancat's blog: Yummy Treats for Sale.

It’s the festive season and Phyllis is cooking and baking up a storm. She’s making the following yummy treats, all nicely packaged in beautiful Christmas Gift Boxes:

Non-vegetarian (has egg):
Pineapple Tarts (35 pieces) @ S$15 per box
Love Letters @ S$10 per box
Mini Kuih Bahulu Indonesian Recipe (100 pieces) @ S$10

Vegetarian:
Spring Roll (100 pieces) @ S$10

If you are interested in ordering these yummy treats to devour with family and friends, please email pawpledge@yahoo.com with your name, phone number and your order quantity.

For orders S$30 or more, free delivery will be provided. (Please remember to include your delivery address on the email.)

For orders under S$30, self pick-up is available if unable to arrange for a convenient meeting point.

All proceeds from this Christmas Bake Sale will benefit the cattery. www.pawpledge.com
Please support generously and kindly put your orders in fast. Limited time only.

Happy Holidays, all