Cat Calls

Taronish Bulsara,Ruchi Nadkarni and Shruti Shetty of the NGO ‘World For All’ wanted to change that. The NGO has been encouraging adoption of rescued pups as well as kittens in Mumbai.

The ever growing number of rescued stray kittens in foster homes and their wait to get adopted gave birth to ‘Meow Mumbai — the Bombay Cat Project’ in June.

“The idea was to remove misconceptions about cats and encourage adoption of kittens. Dogs and pups easily find takers as compared to cats and kittens. We manage an average of 60 adoptions per month of which only 20 are cats,and the rest are dogs. Moreover,there is much more happening for dogs through various NGOs and government sterilization programs. Meow Mumbai was launched to encourage all this and much more for stray cats,” said 25-year-old Taronish.

The project intends to bring together people who could be foster parents,adopters or donors to facilitate more rescues,adoptions and sterilizations of street cats. Within two months,more than 170 kittens have found homes,80 cats have been sterilised and 227 kg of food has been distributed among people who feed stray cats. Donations have helped in getting 35 cats vaccinated. Awareness banners were put up during Ganeshotsav in mandals like Tilaknagar,Lalbaugcha Raja and Siddhivinayak temple and Linking road. Across the city,45 posters were put up. “Through a Facebook campaign,the most popular post received three lakh views and the second went on to receive 1.6 lakh views,” said Taronish.

The NGO predates Meow Mumbai by about four years. It was started after Taronish and Ruchi found a two-month old malnourished and injured pup in Andheri and created a Facebook page to promote its adoption. Since then,close to 1,900 stray cats have been rescued,treated,fostered and adopted through the NGO.

“We held two adoption camps for kittens in Bandra Hindu Association Hall and plan to hold another soon. At these camps,we try to break wrong notions people have about cats. Cats are also loyal,as affectionate and loving as dogs and much easier to look after as compared to dogs since they are agile,have a sense of cleanliness and do not throw tantrums,” said Taronish. A total of 33 kittens found homes at the two camps.

A kitten that recently recovered from paralysis,tiny kittens found dumped in plastic bags,malnourished kittens found abandoned,and injured pregnant cats were among those adopted. Handouts were given to those who adopted them to ensure the right care like basics of kitten care,the right diet,adoption in pairs and the need to sterilize them on time. The adoption process needs an ID proof and address proof of the adopter to certify the adoption. A commitment form is included. To adopt a kitten,one can visit http://www.facebook.com/worldforall or contact 9820001506.