DENR takes steps vs feline woes

It’s no environmental disaster, but the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is taking steps to ensure a domestic problem doesn’t get out of hand.

Environment officials have recently launched a "Adopt A Cat" project to put a stop to the population growth of stray cats at the department’s compound on Visayas Avenue, Quezon City.

The cats will reach their new owners to their destination via door-to-door delivery service courtesy of DENR personnel.

In a memorandum issued last Aug. 27, DENR Undersecretary for Management and Technical Services Rolando Metin urged his co-workers to join the project and even asked them to spread the word to their friends and neighbors.

"Please help us distribute the cats that are literally made the DENR buildings their home," Metin noted in the memo.

He urged all personnel to invite others to the DENR grounds to pick the cats of their choice or have them delivered to their homes.

Metin tasked the DENR’s General Services Office (GSO) to spearhead the project and ensure that no harm will come to the cats in compliance with Republic Act 8485, or the Animal Welfare Act.

The law prohibits getting rid of cats through cruel methods.

The strays, numbering at least 100, have resulted to myriad of woes for the agency’s maintenance crew, ranging from sanitation problems brought about by the cat’s excrements found in ceilings, scavenging and littering to destruction of electrical and telephone lines.

In guidelines sent to DENR, Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) recognized the existence of overpopulation of stray cats within Metro Manila.

PAWS officer Francis Centeno said the proliferation of stray cats in the DENR area is attributed to the popularity of the Visayas Avenue as a favorite dumping ground for unwanted felines.

Adopting a stray will mean saving the animal from castration or even from laboratories of universities to serve as specimens for veterinary students.