Reaching Out

Wow I can't believe it's been years since I posted here. I'm going to start taking more notes here moving forward, though ofc my life is spread across different social media places. There was a whole draft here too and I cannot rmember the date, but it references Abyss being wrapped up for his fungal infection, so that's definitely late 2021.

The last three weekends have been spent waking up early to go cat trapping across the Handicraft Center With Cammy (a Taiwanese consulate officer) and Basyira (engineer?), both of whom live in neighbourhoods close to mine around the KLCC/Jalan Tun Razak area. Turns out that there are more Pads and Paws KL volunteers in our area than we had thought!

The site: Pusat Kraftangan Jalan Conlay (Handicraft Center) / Kompleks Kraf (Craft Complex)

Cammy had been staking out the area for the week before, catching cats here and there, but she asked for backup since there were more cats than she had expected, about 20-odd, and a few pregnant females among them. I went with her one evening, only to have security guards approach us to ask what we were doing and warn us against catching cats without permission. They claims that some of the cats were owned and they were worried that people would get upset if "their" cats went missing suddenly. We went to the main office building the next day to speak to a manager, and eventually the security manager came out to meet us. We introduced ourselves and our organisation, left behind behind some pamphlets, and he basically said, "yes, you can come take cats. Also, don't bring them back, because we're actually not allowed to have cats here." It didn't stop a couple of guards from still trying to dissuade us from trapping cats, one of them even yelling at us and chasing away a cat that we were trying to lure away from leaf blowers to eat in peace.

The first couple of days were really fruitful, with about 6 - 8 cats, many of whom walked right into the carriers with food. But then we had to start really using the traps!

We made a real breakthrough when we finally encountered a couple of security staff. One of them showed us where a mother cat typically brings her kittens for safe playtime and shelter once they are able to move around. Round the back, there is a trash room and the electricity boxes, and the security guard there offered to watch traps for us, even speaking to the nightshift colleague on our behalf. We set up four traps for him, and by the morning, there were three cats. He knew there were two left, so I moved a kitten from a trap into a carrier and left the two traps with him. By afternoon, we had all five cats in the back trash room area!

That brings us to 28 cats sent to the vet for spaying/neutering. We still have one calico, two tabbies, one white, and one ginger at large. The tabbies and white kitty are suspected new moms (as the last time we saw them, they were all pregnant, and when we caught the white kitty's sister, she gave birth at the clinic just the day after).

I borrowed three folding traps from a friend, and somehow during transport, lost the locking piece for the back panel. I'm buying her a replacement and will ask if I can keep that one since it's still pretty functional otherwise.