Stray cats
Cats without families, a life of wandering
In France, 11 million homeless cats roam the streets of our towns and countryside. Faced with the cold, hunger, disease and violence outside, they struggle to survive, but their life expectancy is barely more than five years, compared with fifteen years when they are surrounded by a family.
One Voice has been fighting against feline straying for years. Our investigations enable us to denounce this problem and reveal all its perverse effects. Our Chatipi programme is a practical response to the needs of stray cats and the prejudice they are also the victims of: these refuges deployed throughout France provide them with shelter, care and safety, and offer information to the public.
Why are we fighting feline straying?
Lives of misery
Contrary to popular belief, a stray cat’s life is neither free nor happy! Their daily lives are full of pitfalls. Every day, they have to find food and water on their own, and protect themselves from other cats, dogs and humans who hunt them with guns, stone them, burn them or poison them. Deprived of care, these “homeless” cats are also victims of numerous diseases (FIV, leucosis, typhus, coryza…).
A law that changes nothing
The law against animal abuse passed in 2021 should have changed their fate, but the resources available have not matched the ambitions. When you consider that 10,000 kittens can be born from one cat and her offspring in seven years, sterilisation campaigns are the only effective way of curbing suffering and preserving biodiversity, a collateral victim of feline straying. Many European countries are implementing them. This is the case in Greece, Luxembourg, Belgium… France is turning a blind eye, a criminal apathy.
In the pound: death, out of sight
In 2023, our long-term investigation in several French pounds proved it: once captured, stray cats are ruthlessly crammed onto shelves, in their transport crates, deprived of care and affection before being killed after eight days to make room for the next ones. These mass slaughters are funded by our taxes, when public money should be used for prevention through birth control, the only effective solution to stem the tide of abandoned and stray cats. To put an end to this suffering, we need to make it compulsory to sterilise cats, as it is already compulsory to identify them.
Chatipi, a lasting solution to the vicious circle of feline straying
One Voice is setting up three-way partnerships with municipalities or living areas and local associations to identify, sterilise and release homeless cats by providing them with a wooden chalet to hydrate, feed and comfort themselves. The aim of this ethical scheme is to create spaces for stray cats so that they can be rescued, while at the same time raising public awareness of their distress and needs. More than fifty Chatipis have been set up in France or are in the process of being deployed.
Key figures
An alarming fact
Our proposals
- An emergency plan to make the sterilisation of cats compulsory.
- Controlling the trade in dogs and cats. The commoditisation of our companions leads to impulse buying and is responsible for abandonment.
History
Nearly 30 years of fighting and winning against animal straying
April 2019
Victories for One Voice! We obtained the repeal of a decree issued by the Mayor of Técou, which provided for hunters to be hired to trap cats in order to combat feline straying in his commune, and of a decree issued by the Saône-et-Loire prefecture, authorising the shooting of any homeless dog on sight.
December 2018
After a survey of pet shops, the "Pet shops, I'm a refuge" campaign has been launched. Animals are not commodities. Adoptions must be given priority.
2018
A major survey in France has resulted in a report on the urgent need to deal with feline and canine straying in France. One Voice is developing the Chatipi programme, which will be launched in 2019.
January 2018
One Voice is financially supporting the anti-rabies vaccination campaign and the sterilisation and castration of stray animals in the region around Virunga Park run by Bantu Lukambo in Congo.
2017
Mobilisation against the prefectoral plan to combat animal straying on Reunion Island: One Voice is taking legal action to save the cats targeted by a vast plan of indiscriminate poisoning and trapping under the guise of regulation.
2012
Launch of the campaign for donkeys in Brazil. A proposed agreement to export donkeys to China is halted thanks to international mobilisation. One Voice begins a long-term project alongside the Paola Rodrigues refuge to save and rehabilitate Brazilian donkeys.
2010
One Voice is the only French association to join ARCH, a coalition of international associations working to save animals after the violent earthquake that devastated Haiti. In partnership with the government, its action will help to prevent zoonosis epidemics that also threaten humans.
2007
An investigation in China ahead of the Olympic Games reveals the fate of dogs and cats exploited for their meat and fur. The victims include many captured strays. Municipalities even organise roundups to get rid of dogs that have become undesirable.
2007
One Voice is organising and fully financing the purchase of land and the construction of a shelter and clinic in Darjeeling, India, where dogs are accused of all kinds of evil. An information and vaccination programme against rabies carried out in agreement with the municipality and in partnership with DGAS, a local association, will put an end to their poisoning.
2007
Supporting rescue teams and supplying emergency medicines to save domestic and wild animals threatened by flooding in Kaziranga Park, India.
2005
In the wake of the tsunami, our work continues. A shelter has been set up in Port Blair to house and feed stray animals, which are sterilised and released as soon as their condition allows. In Thailand, our team is helping stray dogs that were surviving thanks to tourists.
