Cyprus cats out in the cold as pandemic bites
At a cat sanctuary set in picturesque hills near Paphos, on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, volunteers are grappling with a surge in abandonments they blame on the coronavirus pandemic. “There has been an increase of about 30 percent of previously owned, loved (and) looked-after cats that have been left behind” as people depart the island, lamented Dawn Foote, 48, who runs the Tala Cats rescue center. Some among Cyprus’s large expatriate and dual resident communities have retreated home as the economic squeeze has tightened, she noted.
“People, at the moment, have just got no money, and it’s expensive to get a cat to another country-you’ve got passports to pay for, you’ve got transport carriers to pay,” Foote said. “It’s heartbreaking,” she told AFP, saying abandonments were rising island-wide, in part also due to locals no longer being able to afford pet food or vet bills. Evidence of cats’ domestication in Cyprus dates back further than anywhere else, including Pharaonic Egypt.
In 2004, archaeologists announced they had unearthed the remains of a cat and a human deliberately buried together 9,500 years ago at the Neolithic village of Shillourokambos. That’s some 1,500 years earlier than the previous record find-also in Cyprus-in the form of a feline jawbone.
Prowling for food, owners
Abandoned cats just “don’t know how to survive,” Foote said. “A lot of them want to give up.” The government imposed a nationwide lockdown from January 10, Cyprus’s second since the pandemic began, after Covid-19 infections surged. The closure of restaurants-choice locations for feline scavengers-has further compounded the misery for many of the island’s feline residents, whose numbers dwarf the human population, according to at least one animal welfare organization.
Meanwhile, the rehousing of animals, many of whom find their “forever homes” abroad, has become more difficult, a trend confirmed to AFP by a dog sanctuary near the capital Nicosia. Fewer cargo flights, higher transport costs and the repeated closure of sanctuaries to visitors are making it harder to win would-be owners’ hearts. As a result, there are now some 800 cats prowling the grounds at Tala Cats, situated on land owned by the nearby Agios Neophytos Monastery. The location is apt, because there is no breeding-all the felines who come through the gates are spayed or neutered.
‘Your outdoor cat’
Sterilization is key to keeping any stray cat population under control, and while some vets in Cyprus perform operations outside their main business, they face an uphill battle. State coordination and funding for sterilization programs — 75,000 euros ($91,000) in total last year, according to the agriculture ministry-were insufficient, vets told AFP. The strategy “is not working at all... it’s not focused”, said Evis Andreou, 42, noting that key prerequisites, including censuses of stray populations in target areas, were absent.
Cyprus’s agriculture ministry said its neutering program has been “effective”, noting however that it was “working to further improve our procedures, so that there is more effective targeting and control” during the coming year. But some say the public as a whole also fails to take the issue seriously enough. “I hear people here say, ‘this
The pandemic has left the performance industry reeling but music publishing, a normally under-theradar side of the business, is roaring thanks to a frenzy of high-profile music catalog sales. The royalty streams of songwriting copyright portfolios can prove lucrative for the long haul, and increasingly are enticing investors even as other industries tank under the pandemic’s weight. In many cases, the transactions have come at staggering prices: Bob Dylan sold his full publishing catalog for a reported sum of $300 million to Universal Music Publishing Group, while Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac sold a majority stake in her catalog reportedly for $100 million. Neil Young and the duo behind Blondie inked deals for undisclosed amounts, as did Shakira. Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood, both also of Fleetwood Mac, each recently announced sales that include publishing copyrights to hits including the 1977 song “Dreams,” which recently enjoyed a streaming renaissance after going viral on TikTok. The owners of a song’s publishing rights receive a cut in a number of scenarios, including radio play and streaming, album sales, and use in advertising and movies. The “fantastically positive” sales trend began well before 2020 but rapidly escalated even as other sectors suffered due to Covid-19, said Nari Matsuura, a partner at the firm Massarsky Consulting, which valuates catalogs for lenders and music publishing groups along with private equity and music funds. Streaming’s numbers have soared in recent years and appear sound long-term.
That anticipated stability combined with low interest rates and dependable earning projections for time-tested hits have fostered music publishing’s bull market, she said. Meanwhile, many artists unable to tour have looked to monetize their other assets, namely songwriting catalogs, as the valuations of their work continue to rise. “We have seen names, these incredibly iconic artists... (who) we never imagined would sell,” Matsuura said. For some musicians, it makes sense to cash out while they know prices are good. —AFP