Animal welfare: kittens ‘caught’ at elderly residence released, one required medical care

The animal welfare directorate has confirmed that animal welfare officers were at Saint Vincent de Paul Residence “to catch” three kittens that had entered one of the wards.

Director Lawrence Buhagiar said that the directorate had received a call from the staff requesting their assistance to relocate the three kittens.

“Two of the kittens were soon released in the same perimeter of SVPR whilst the third kitten needed some medical care and was therefore taken to Ċentru San Franġisk for the necessary treatment,” Buhagiar said.

The clarification follows a statement issued by Animal Guardians Malta which claimed that the SVPR management had “called in men with cages and removed cats from around the building”.

“Surely this amounts to animal abuse because this has been the cats' territory for ages,” the NGO said, accusing the residence’s CEO of “going over and above her daily business at SVPR”.

The animal rights NGO this week also called on junior ministers Roderick Galdes and Justyne Caruana to intervene after the residence’s staff and elderly were stopped from feeding the cats and kittens.

Although a meeting with the SVPR management and the NGO was held to draft a plan on how to best take care of the cats while ensuring that the residence respects its sanitary requirements, Animal Guardians Malta said that it had not received any feedback.