TORREVIEJA CAT COLONIES

Given the growing presence of community cats in the municipality and taking into account Torrevieja City Council's commitment to achieving the highest level of animal protection and welfare, combined with the legal obligation to promote public responsibility, awareness, and collaboration, the Torrevieja Cat Colony Management Program (PGECF) is being developed.

Free-roaming or semi-free-roaming cats, which cannot easily be approached or kept by humans due to their low or nonexistent level of socialization, but which live around them for their subsistence, gather in territories to form feline colonies. These animals obtain resources provided by the human environment voluntarily and involuntarily.

The objective of the Torrevieja PGECF (General Council for the Protection of Community Cats) will be to control the population of community cats, reducing their population and maintaining their protection, ensuring the well-being of the city's cats, facilitating their coexistence with citizens, and preventing public health problems.

Preventing the exponential growth of these animals through sterilization measures improves the health of the cats. Controlling feeding spaces and feeding times helps limit the spread of these animals into unauthorized areas and the disturbance to neighbors resulting from the uncontrolled feeding of animals by individuals outside the plan. Feeding control is key to linking animals to a territory, establishing their census, and planning captures for identification, sterilization, and the application of necessary health treatments.

This management program will allow the city to enjoy the presence and pesticide function of healthy cats and will allow interested citizens to satisfy their need to feed and care for these animals in a controlled and sanitary-friendly manner.