The stray cat crisis in the UK is only worsening, and animal rescues are overrun.
Last summer, one of my lifelong dreams came true. I have always wanted a cat, but for one reason or another – the cost of vet bills, food, not having the space, etc. – it just never really made sense.
However, one day last August, the choice was taken out of my hands when walking into my garden to fetch something from the shed, having left it open the night before. Four tiny kittens looked up at me, not a thought in their heads, meowing for their mum who was nearby.
The cat distribution system had chosen me. The universe had decided that now was the time in my life when I needed a kitten.
Instantly, I latched on to the chunky black and white male with two tiny dots on his nose, giving him a little moustache, and claimed him for my own before any one of my housemates could say another word.
Naming him Albert in a moment of whimsy, I moved the mother and her four kittens inside.
Once the sun had set and taken the excitement of the day with it, I was left in my living room with five hungry, flea-ridden, helpless cats, and one question on my mind: What the hell do I do now? Albert was mine, but what about the rest?
After making sure they were eating and healthy, I called up the big names in animal rescue: RSPCA, Battersea, Blue Cross; all fully booked up with London’s cat epidemic and unwilling to take my kittens.
Turning to smaller, more local charities, I had the same response. They all offered to advertise my cats on their websites for adoption, but until they had spaces in foster homes, I was to be their full-time dad.
Cases like mine are not standalone in London or the UK. We have a real problem with stray cats – a “crisis”, the BBC reports – as without steps being taken to ensure they are taken off the streets and stop breeding, they will only continue to procreate.
So, I was stuck with my fluffy and adorable burdens. Don’t get me wrong; they were a joy to keep, but as time went by, my bank account suffered under the stress of more and more visits to the pet shop for food, not to mention toys, bedding, and flea treatment.
Looking after the cats ended up truly being a full-time job, and my circumstances were extremely lucky. If I hadn’t had the money or time to take care of them, and landlord approval, there really wouldn’t have been anything I could do but, heartbreakingly, leave them back in the shed where I found them to fend for themselves.
Feline Friends, one of the local, London-based charities I reached out to, proved to be extremely helpful in my newfound parenthood. Though again, they couldn’t take any of my cats at the time, Barbara Read, their founder, helped me out with some free flea treatment and worked patiently through my long list of questions.
Even in this short trip, it was apparent that the charity was overrun by London’s cat epidemic; our conversation was constantly interrupted by calls to Barbara’s phone, citing one cat emergency or another.
By my second visit to interview her about the London cat crisis three months later, I had successfully rehomed three of the kittens I found, sending them off to live with friends and family. I kept Albert and also the mother, naming her Lesley, as adult cats are much harder to find homes for – although, of course, I was pleased, as I had grown very attached to her.
“I haven’t had a holiday since 2008,” Barbara tells me as we sit down in her Hackney flat, surrounded by her own handful of cats.
She set up Feline Friends as a rescue, not as a charity, in 2013, initially just to help stray or unwanted cats in Hackney, after rescuing her friends’ cat, Shola, and working for Cats Protection.
At her branch of the charity, Barbara and her team “rehomed more cats than any other new branch and possibly more than any other branch in the country,” a testament to her commitment to cat rescue.
After the branch closed for “not going by their rules,” she set up Feline Friends full-time, not expecting to receive the same footfall.
Over the years, Feline Friends has received more and more traffic until now, where it’s one of the top search results online for ‘London cat rescue’.
Naturally, as the years went on, she fell in love with and adopted her own stray cats; “three of my own cats are semi-feral,” she says, just as Lesley is.
Lesley has never once bitten, scratched, or hissed at me, despite having had her freedom taken away for months and many, surely confusing, medical procedures.
It confuses me, then, that so many cats are still on the street, though they can love us just the same as any pedigree, expensive, bred cat can.
“Feral cats are as important as any other animal. They don’t choose to be born on the streets, and they’re only feral because they haven’t been properly socialised and nobody’s taken care of them.” Somehow, though, across London and the UK as a whole, feral cats still roam unhomed, unsterilised, and hungry.
It’s no surprise with the sheer amount of cats on the streets that small charities like Feline Friends are completely overrun. “We must have at least 100 fosterers, and probably upwards of 150 cats and kittens in foster. We rehome up to 30 cats a month.”
That’s pretty good going for a charity purely run by volunteers, and compared to other charities, not a lot of funding, Barbara tells me. “What determines the amount we can foster is having space for them, not money.”
The main thing that causes the seemingly infinite cycle of stray cats is a lack of neutering. “People don’t get their cats neutered. An un-neutered cat will just wander off and have kittens. Female cats will just keep having kittens until they’re spayed, because their hormones drive them to mate.”
“If you’ve got one unneutered female cat, before too long you’ve got a colony of strays.”
Lots of cats and kittens aren’t as lucky to be found as my litter were. “Once we dealt with a colony that developed from one female cat that a lady hadn’t got neutered, and there must have been about 30. There were dead cats just lying around; it was very, very upsetting.”
With vet bills as high as they are, cat owners who don’t understand the risks of un-neutered cats are naturally going to avoid the cost of the procedure. Albert and Lesley cost me over £100 each to have neutered; it definitely gave me a scare when I had to pay their bills.
“A lot of independent vets are being bought up by corporates, and the corporates charge astronomical prices,” Barbara informed me. It doesn’t take a lot of research to follow the trail of where the money ends up, either.
Village Vet, which operates 30 practices in three UK cities, is owned by Linnaeus, which is owned by the American multinational conglomerate, Mars.
There are cheaper alternatives out there. Barbara cites Romford Vets for Pets as having “the best price anywhere for neutering,” and told me about the C4 neutering scheme, a London-based initiative providing neutering and microchipping for as low as £10.
Although, as in my case, these options aren’t always glaringly obvious, it’s easy to push back against the idea of neutering when faced with a £100 price tag.
Feline Friends has a strict non-euthanasia policy, in that they won’t put down a cat unless they are struggling and have no way to save them, unless it’s “a compassionate act.”
But other charities have been rumoured to take harsher measures to deal with the masses of rescues that push them past capacity. The RSPCA is sometimes accused of euthanising cats because they can’t find homes for them.
I reached out to the RSPCA about such claims; a spokesperson said: “The RSPCA has a clear policy that it will not euthanise a healthy, rehomable animal. Euthanasia is only ever carried out on the advice of a vet, to prevent further physical or mental suffering.”
Rescue workers like Barbara believe any unnecessary killing of a cat is wrong: “I think that life is sacred and precious. If I know anything about this life and world, then that is something that I totally stand by. I just don’t think we have the right to take a life unnecessarily,” she said.
“A lot of charities are dependent on the public for donations, so they do have to answer to the public. I would leave a cat on the street until we’ve got somewhere. I wouldn’t euthanise them.”
The sheer number of stray cats isn’t good, but there have got to be better solutions than euthanasia, especially when they’re so loving.
Steps are being taken in the UK to reduce the number of stray cats on our streets. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025, which will be enacted in May of this year, means that landlords will not be allowed to deny their tenants’ requests for pets. Hopefully, this will reduce the number of cats abandoned and encourage rescues like mine.
However, the process still seems like a lengthy procedure which appears to favour the landlord. If they deny the claim, tenants will have to apply to the court to start legal proceedings; not really the hoops anyone wants to jump through just to own a pet.
It’s not the sort of legislation that will make the actual change we need. Other European countries like Spain and Belgium enforce a mandatory law for cats to be neutered before six months of age.
Such a small change could make a large difference; “If there’s one thing the government could do, they could make neutering compulsory,” says Barbara. “Whether there’s the political will to do that, I don’t know.”
For now, what we really need in the UK is more adoption and fostering. Even with the incredible support charities like Feline Friends receive, they are constantly stretched beyond their capacity for donations.
Adoption really is the way for anyone looking for a cat: “You don’t need to follow the trend of pedigree cats that look good in a selfie. You have to want to care for a cat,” Barbara said, and any real cat lover will see the sweetness of them all, stray or not.
For more information on Feline Friends, and to get in touch about fostering, adopting, or donating, click here.
All images by Isaac Hodgson.