Smells fishy... and it's not cat food! (2)

Dr Cuschieri not only failed to state by whose authority the garden cats were removed from at least Barracca Gardens and San Anton but neither did he state why they were removed and how they were caught. It is important to know how, because the consortium's workmen (who are paid by public funds to plant flowers) are no experts in this field.

The National Cat Society still expects that: 1. the cats to be returned to their original environment without delay (already one cat has returned to San Anton, others might have got killed while trying to do so); 2. the number of cats removed and their type and colour made publicly known.

Further it is known that no instructions from the minister concerned were given for their removal from public gardens.

The NCS questions the promise made by the manager of the consortium (not of cats) and asks who is going to foot the bill for the cats' upkeep (since everyone is under the impression that the millions of liri the consortium received were to keep Malta green and not to have catless gardens).

The NCS, and indeed every taxpayer, would like to see tenders for the food to be bought from importers to feed the cats. We would like to know whether the cats will be given 100 per cent balanced food, whether a change in diet is given, whether cats with kidney trouble are immediately taken care of and whether diet food for these cats will be purchased or not. There are tens of other questions that the NCS would like to ask regarding food.

To whom will the sick cats be taken? Why choose that vet and not another? Do they know who is the best? Who will pay for the vet bills and medicine? Who will take the cats to the vet when they are sick? Who is going to administer any medicine? Are they going to buy cat carriers? There are many more questions that the NCS would like to ask regarding health hazards.

What is the policy of the consortium when the cat population explodes? Are they proud to adopt a no-kill policy? What about water troughs with daily fresh water? Shade? Sleeping quarters? And above all the real love of the ladies who were robbed of their cats by the consortium?

Who is going to compensate these ladies after looking after the needs of these cats for so many years? These cats were practically all spayed and neutered by Mrs Borg, the vet. Ask her with what love the ladies from San Anton used to go to her to cure sick cats of San Anton. Poor cats. Poor ladies.

We wait to see what the consortium has to say to the taxpayers and the Animal Welfare Council.

Dr Cuschieri tells us that a litter of kittens which, he claims, had been abandoned at San Anton, were homed. How and where?