Israel Cat Lovers' Society

Israel Cat Lovers' Society
The society was founded in 1966 with the aim of helping the streetcat population of Haifa and Northern Israel. We are a non-profit volunteer-run organization funded by donations and by similar organizations abroad; since 1995 we have also received some funding from the Ministry for Environmental Quality and, since 1998, a small amount from the Haifa Municipality.
The society’s main aims and activities are:
1. Initiating and encouraging an on-going program of subsidized spaying/neutering of stray cats with the aim of controlling the expansion of the cat population.
2. Rescue and treatment of cats in distress.
3. Sheltering abandoned, abused, injured or sick kittens and cats, and treating them until permanent caring homes are found for them.
4. Finding permanent homes for homeless cats and kittens.
5. Prevention of poisonings and mass exterminations.
6. Educational and informative lectures by vets and volunteers to adults and to students in schools and institutes of higher education.
7. Assistance to needy populations in operating feeding stations for cats, and subsidizing of medical treatments.
8. Operating a hotline, to provide the public with guidance and information on cat-related problems.

 1. Our spaying program
The Society is very much opposed to the extermination of homeless cats. A better solution to the problem is to spay the cats. The society therefore carries out mass neutering programs, by:
• Enhancing awareness of the need to spay among cat owners.
• Financing the spaying of homeless cats and of the cats of people who cannot themselves afford to spay them.
• Subsidizing the neutering of homeless cats: Due to the high cost of spaying animals in Israel, many cat owners refrain from doing so; instead, they let them have litters and then abandon the kittens in the street, or worse. This led the society to decide to offer the operation, a decision which has been highly successful since many cat owners turn to the society for this service.
In June 98 the Mayor of Haifa finally agreed to co-operate with this initiative and allotted for it a grant which enabled the society to spay nearly 2000 cats, thus preventing the birth of more than 100,000 kittens which would have led miserable lives. This program has been ongoing ever since.
2. Rescue
The society operates rescue services for animals stranded on trees, roofs and gutters, or hurt by accidents or in neighbors’ quarrels.
3. Providing Shelter and Medical Treatment
We operate a shelter on the outskirts of Haifa where abandoned or injured cats are treated and kept while we try to find homes for them. Unfortunately the number of cats seeking adoption grows continually: while in 2006 our shelter housed about 250 cats, today we have 400 and are struggling to maintain them. Many do not find homes and remain in the society’s shelter for good.
In addition, we are currently working with seven clinics throughout Haifa and the vicinity to provide medical care for homeless cats. We treat cats suffering from illness, neglect, abandonment, wounds, cruelty and even torture, road and other  accidents, and so on.
4. Finding homes
Tthe society tries to find homes for adoptable cats in its shelter, and mediates between people with cats to give away and people who want to adopt them. The adopters agree to neuter the cat when the time comes, either privately or via the society’s subsidized rates.
We also work with foster families who look after kittens until they are old enough to be vaccinated (about two months old), when they are returned to the shelter to seek adoption.
5. Prevention of poisoning
When the number of street cats becomes a problem, some factories, places of work and even local authorities solve it by poisoning the cats, even though this is illegal. The society devotes immense effort to trying to prevent such cruel, illegal mass poisonings of street-cat populations throughout Haifa and the north. When possible we file a complaint with the police, but we can only do so if eye witnesses are willing to come forward, and this is not always the case. If we receive advance warning of a poisoning program we turn to the local authority. Many times we have had great success in preventing poisonings by appealing to the mayor or to the head of the local authority in whose jurisdiction they were about to be carried out. We have also received aid from the Ministry of the Environment, and occasionally from Knesset members or Ministers who have cared about the problem; these include Advocate Abraham Poraz while Minister of the Interior, Ms. Yael Dayan while a Member of the Knesset, and Mr. Yossi Sarid while Minister of Education.
Unfortunately it is relatively rare to get advance warning of these illegal mass exterminations; more often than not we hear about them too late.
6. Education and Advocacy
Ever since its foundation (1966) the society’s top priority has been to raise the awareness of animals keepers, especially cat owners, regarding their responsibility towards them. Over the years we have run youth programs, held school lectures and operated many advocacy stands. Many of those stands are run by our youth, teenagers aged 12 to 18.
7. Providing Aid for the Needy
We do our best to help people of modest means to care for cats: these include new immigrants, retired people, the under-privileged, Seniors’ homes, and at any location where cat populations are being periodically (and illegally) poisoned. The Society devotes great effort to helping all these segments of the population, especially with neutering their cats. We especially emphasize help to new immigrants from Eastern Europe, who on the one hand are known for  their love of animals but on the other hand lack the basic awareness of how to take care of them and be responsible for them. The society intends to reach out to this population via the local Russian-language newspapers, both to advocate the spaying of cat populations and to offer subsidies for cat owners to spay their pets.
8. Hotline service
The society receives around 600 calls per month to its round-the-clock hotline. Like all our activities, the hotline is operated by volunteers who typically get back to the caller within a few hours. Requests for help include:
• Medical treatment
• Animals in distress
• Rescue requests
• Adoption requests
• Requests for financial help for spaying.
• Requests for professional advice and information.
• Volunteering offers especially from youngsters.
• Referrals from the municipality, e.g.: wounded cats or requests to pick up cats which have had litters in store-rooms, apartment balconies etc.
• Mass giveaways of unwanted cats due to: allergies, owner’s move to a Seniors’ home which forbids pets, owner’s emigration or travel abroad, threats to abandon domestic cats which cannot survive outdoors, and so on.