Meet the domestic animal gang
As of June 2024 our domestic animal population has reached 94 cats and 22 dogs.. All cats and dogs are sterilized, vaccinated and medically screened (daily). All new animals are named at arrival and kept in our database.
Cats are free to roam the entire site of the education center (and beyond) on weekdays. Cats are called into the enclosure by our domestic staff twice daily for feedings and absentee checks (twice daily checklist with all cat names), and released again after feeding and medications (for those that are ‘patients’). Cats are only locked up in our enclosure on days in which our site is very busy with visitors. There are some days in which the visitor numbers can reach into the thousands.
Much of our domestic animal staff’s time is taken up with cleaning, medical care (prevention and treatment), cat enclosure repairs, making new enrichment, taking care of cats in quarantine, and taking care of our dogs. We have a 2 separate dog enclosures for our 12 dogs, and dogs are walked twice daily.
Several times each year we carry out a spay/neuter program. We firstly focus on all new cats or dogs that have come under our care. Secondly we carry out a free spay/neuter program for domestic animals from local communities living near the facility and stray animals.
In Indonesia spay/neutering of domestic animals is rarely done and also seems to have a social stigma. Hence initially it was quite difficult to convince people of the various positive outcomes if an animal is spayed/neutered.