Le Nhat Long (left) and a group of young volunteers gather at a park in HCM City on March 26 to catch feral cats for their Trap - Neuter- Release activities
The 27-year-old man and his team members, who are mostly local university students, were joined by some vets. They were helped by a local man, Duong Van Lam, who has fed local feral cats over the past five years.
Lam took the team to a place where he usually fed the cats. And soon some cats appeared when hearing Lam's call. The elderly man placed some food and one came to eat. Long then trapped the cat with a bag.
Duong Van Lam helps the team look for the animals
"This is a campaign in the HavePaws project which is one among many social activities operated by our HAVE company," Long shared. We established HAVE, a non-profit social enterprise last June. With this project we're following the activity of Trap - Neuter- Release on feral cats which has already been carried out in many countries. We aim to reduce the population of feral cats which have rapidly increased."
Volunteers in the HavePaws project
The team said that this was their third campaign of this project and they have treated 26 cats.
"As the vets checked the cats, they've found some of them have different diseases which need treatment and monitoring," a team member, Nguyen Tan Hiep, said. "Some are pregnant. Meanwhile, both male and female cats need good care after neutering. And we have to take care of them until they get well before finding them a new home or releasing them."
Hiep shared that he has also adopted a cat from the group and 14 others have also had new homes.
A feral cat is being taken care by the team
A guard at the park, Nguyen Van Son, estimated that there were over 100 feral cats living there.
"Their population is increasing fast," he said. Although visitors sometimes bring them food, they might struggle if the population keeps rising. I think the project is very good for them."
