The Borough of Oldham has been identified as one of the areas of the country that Oldham is experiencing a “cat crisis” with the largest number of emergency call-outs in England.
A report from the charity The RSPCA said it was being inundated with calls to deal with neglected, maltreated, injured and stray cats in Greater Manchester.
Manchester as a whole was ranked fourth in the report which while focusing on Greater London shows the crisis is nationwide.
A spokesman for the charity told About Manchester
“Our figures show that Oldham is the area with the highest concentration of cat related incidents per person. Sadly we will never truly know why there is such a big issue here.
“We believe that many of the injured or neglected cats brought into our care by Inspectors are street cats without an owner to care for them.
“Particularly in the summer months animal charities are inundated with kittens with no one to care for them – many have been born in a garden shed to a cat who has not been neutered. Sadly others can be deliberately dumped by owners who did not expect their cats to give birth.
“The RSPCA and other animal charities cannot keep up with the demand for space in their centres, all the cat pods are full throughout summer with more cats in costly private boarding.
“To tackle this problem we need to work together as animal charities are struggling to cope with the demand. We strongly believe the answer lies in owners neutering pets to prevent unplanned litters and also keeping all microchip details up to date so if cats do end up straying we can quickly reunite them with their owners.”
