We were sent this story by Janette White who is the new president of VOCAL, based in the Lasithi area of Crete.
For those of you who don’t know, VOCAL is a non-profit animal welfare organisation supporting street cats in north-east Crete. They are a small group of volunteers living in and around Agios Nikolaos, neutering through a TNR programme, providing veterinary care for sick, injured and orphaned cats and kittens, and finding, where possible, homes in Crete or overseas for those that cannot live on the streets. You can read more about their work on their website https://vocalcatscrete.gr/
2025 was a busy year at VOCAL. We ran 38 days of clinics in which we neutered 1,589 cats and treated 174 for health issues, helped by around 30 volunteers and of course, the wonderful vets from Foerderverein Arche Noah ev Creta. We are eternally grateful to them for their time, kindness, expertise and patience.
Our army of feeders have been out all winter, rain or shine, ensuring that the cats have food and clean water as well as reporting any they notice are unwell or injured. We can always do with more eyes on the street doing this work and in particular, more trappers catching cats for the clinics.
We held our Spring Bazaar and craft fair in early April 2025, which raised in excess of 1,000 euro to help with our neutering work. Once that was over and our store room was relatively empty and tidy, we had a major sort out and reorganisation putting up extra shelving for cat boxes and cages and creating a better work area to do repairs.
Throughout the year our library has continued to prosper, building up a loyal clientele of readers as well as those that enjoy traditional cakes and fresh coffee every Thursday. Since its beginnings in November 2022, our library has managed to donate around 10,000 euros to add to our funds, every cent of which goes towards our work with the cats
But new year, new kittens, new mammas. Still they come!
Our clinics will continue in 2026 and we are currently working hard to catch males and in particular females before they become pregnant. Most recently, we held a one day clinic on 6th March, a three day clinic from 16th to 18th March plus another one day clinic on 23rd March, all of which was a mammoth effort from all concerned. We really are trying to get to the local colonies before they start the spring cycle of breeding and to check their health after a long winter with no hotels and restaurants open for them to scavenge food.
Our one day clinics on 16th and 23rd focused on a very large colony approaching 100 cats that has only recently been brought to our attention in Kounali and its surrounding villages, not far from Latsida. The day before each of these clinics, our inveterate trappers caught and transported a large number of animals for health checks and neutering. We know that there are several more to be caught and treated but that may be in a few months as the cats are getting to understand what a trap is now, and are much more wary. We have also now discovered the maximum number of traps it is possible to fit into a saloon car, and it’s a lot!
