Mobile vet clinic could be answer for Abu Dhabi’s stray problem, but big kitty is needed

Animal welfare volunteers say a mobile veterinary clinic could be the answer to Abu Dhabi’s rampant feral cat population – but at Dh75,000, it is not cheap.

One group is hoping to import a customised van to help volunteer vets with the capital’s neutering programme.

Animal Welfare Abu Dhabi has set up more than 200 feeding stations but visiting each, as well as taking in a few cats at a time to clinics, is costly.

A mobile clinic is regarded as much cheaper and will give control back to the volunteers, who have been fighting a losing battle to manage the nation’s thriving cat population.

Naz Findley, from South Africa, is a full-time volunteer and the director of operations at Animal Welfare Abu Dhabi.

“There is a desperate need for this mobile clinic to help our extensive trap, neuter and release programme,” Mrs Findley said. “The clinic would be treating problems where they are needed, and the cats can be treated on-site so it is more efficient and effective.”

She is looking at the legal requirements of attracting business sponsorship to help fund the clinic.

The latest business to join the group’s feeding programme is New York University Abu Dhabi, along with Serco, the institution’s management company. Hotels and malls have signed up to the scheme.

It has become an attractive option for companies to improve their standing in corporate social responsibility.

“People would rather see an organised feed and see cats are being dealt with in a humane and compassionate way,” Mrs Findley said.

“The clinic is a mobile, sterile consulting room. The way it has been used in the UK is as a complete facility, so we know it works. If we were to try and buy a vehicle and convert it here it would be a more expensive process and take more time trying to find out what works.”

The group has 11 volunteers for the clinic. The operators hope the programme will also encourage those on a low income who have taken in cats to seek vet treatment, as it will offer them discounts.

Dr Susan Aylott, from the UK, has been working with businesses around the capital, signing them up to the group’s feeding programme.

The cats are regarded as a nuisance in some areas and the programme offers an alternative to private pest controllers, who often round up and dump the cats outside the city.

“This mobile clinic would be a far better alternative to the system we have,” Dr Aylott said. “We can park up at a feeding station, sterilise 100 of them and then work across the city.”

Cats that have been dumped on Lulu Island in Abu Dhabi have rapidly multiplied, their numbers growing by 340 per cent since 2014.

A feeding station has been established there and vets plan a second temporary field clinic for more sterilisations.

A recent report by the UK’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said that 92 per cent of females in a colony would need to be sterilised for any programme to be effective.

A mobile clinic could also help the group extend its sterilisation programme northwards.

“We are hoping to move into Dubai as it has a real problem with stray cats,” Dr Aylott said. “An audit report for all of our companies involved with the neutering programme and feeding project is being prepared so we can show how successful it has been up to now.”