Senoko Energy, Singapore, have an enlightened approach to feral cats

The Straits Times reports that 20 feral cats have made the Senoko Power Station their home last August, in the middle of the Covid pandemic, because adjacent food processing factories had closed. It is pleasing to note that the CEO and president of Senoko Energy, Mr Graeme York, is a self-professed animal lover. He understands how to deal with feral cats in a humane way. He understands TNR and he also allows some feral cats to occupy his business premises.

Beautiful feral cats trapped from Senoko Powerstation under a TNR program. Photo: Cindy Lim.

He said that he is not against a small population of cats occupying the power station provided they are cared for. And quite rightly he says that it is important that they are neutered. The 20 cats that have come across from other businesses included individuals who weren't neutered.

This was picked up by Miss Cindy Lim, the senior vice president and head of legal and compliance at Senoko Energy. With other employees, she cares for about 10 resident cats at the power station. She said that she noticed "a few pregnant cats among the new strays. This got me worried  as, if left unchecked, cat numbers can easily double or triple in a few months."

The site is not ideal because there's lots of heavy machinery and bulldozers. There are rusty metal objects lying around and a couple of cats have suffered injuries resulting in the amputation of limbs. Notwithstanding that, they are being cared for by an enlightened management.

The company contracted with a professional cat trapper who works with the Cat Welfare Society. The unsterilised cats were trapped and sterilised and then returned as per TNR methodology. The Cat Welfare Society say that they have a backlog of TNR cases because of Covid restrictions.

There is no doubt that Covid has had quite a deep impact on TNR feral cat colony management because volunteers have been restricted in their movements. The president of the Cat Welfare Society said that they have a problem and that often businesses with unsterilised feral cats on their sites do not allow them to enter to trap and sterilise them because they are uninformed about TNR.

There seems to be need to educate certain sections of the business world in Singapore on the benefits of TNR which is also described as TNRM, with the last letter denoting "manage".

I'm just pleased to read a story about senior management in a big company being enlightened about how the deal with feral cats on their property. Other businesses would do well to learn from them. Not infrequently, the news media reports on business management employing a contractor, a pest controller, to remove and kill feral cats. This is both inhumane and less effective I would argue because you create a vacuum and more feral cats move into it. The more decent and sensible approach is to manage the population. The cats provide a service in keeping down the rodent population.

The Senoko Power Station is the largest station in Singapore. It is owned by Senoko Energy PTE Ltd. It began operations in 1976. Senoko Energy PTE Ltd is owned by Lion Power Holdings which in turn is owned by a consortium of enterprises led by Japan's Marubeni Corporation.

Singapore is another country where they don't punish animal abusers with enough severity

NEWS AND COMMENT: Animal lovers in Singapore are unhappy with a 12-week jail sentence handed down to a man who decided to slash 11 street cats which inflicted deep and troublesome wounds. It happened in an area called Ang Mo Kio. The wounds were life-threatening on occasions it seems to me. Each count of animal cruelty in Singapore carries a possible jail term of up to 18 months and a maximum fine of 15,000 Singapore dollars or both. So, the sentence could have been much longer.

 Singapore is another country where they don't punish animal abusers with enough severity. Image: MikeB.

Leow Wei Liang, 37, pleaded guilty to 3 of the charges and another four were taken into consideration on sentencing. Animal lovers and volunteers who care for the street cat are angry because he has been under-sentenced. If the report is complete, I would have thought too that the judge could have made an order against this man to recompense the volunteers who paid for expensive veterinary fees out of their own pockets.

Milo's medical fees combined with temporary boarding came to 3,000 Singapore dollars. Milo remains at a boarding facility. He has been there for more than two months recovering from complications from the nasty wounds inflicted on him. Milo, a grey cat, had a 10 cm gash on his left flank.

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Raymond Tan, 44, helped to look after four of the injured cats. He spent nearly a month trying to trap one who was too frightened to come out. When they finally trapped the cat Tan said that "the wound was infested with maggots and the cat was very weak."

He said that he was angry and disappointed with the sentencing. It is the sort of sentencing on conviction for animal abuse and cruelty which not only angers Singaporeans but all decent people who care about the welfare of animals. There has to be a deterrent to animal cruelty and the sentence does not achieve that.

Nicole Chan, 33, a housewife who took care of three of the cats said: "Eleven cats suffered at Leow's hands. And because of what he did, we had to get nine other stray cats off the streets and into boarding facilities to prevent more attacks. There needs to be more deterrence for abusers."

Autistic Singaporean with antisocial personality wanted to harm cats because they weren't human

ANG MO KIO, SINGAPORE - NEWS AND COMMENT: A 37-year-old Singaporean, Leow Wei Liang, simply wanted to harm community cats. In some respects he hid behind his autism and antisocial personality disorder. But the bottom line is that this man wanted to harm cats because they are not human and were 'just cats'. He harmed them for his own perverse entertainment. He could not use his personality disorders as a defence to being cruel to animals. As a consequence, he was successfully prosecuted and on conviction he was sentenced to 12 weeks in prison.

Photos: Ang Mo Kio South Caregivers and Feeders)

Leow pleaded guilty to 3 counts of animal cruelty and another four charges were taken into consideration. In evidence it was submitted that several community cats were injured over a month in housing estates in Ang Mo Kio. He said that he had bought a penknife with the intention of injuring seven cats.

He said that he is allergic to cat fur and "wanted to have fun since the stray cats were stray animals and not human."

The cats suffered a range of wounds, all serious but none fatal as far as I am aware. Leow was assessed as to his mental health in order to ensure that he could stand trial and plead. The assessment found that his acts of cruelty were not because of a difficulty in comprehending the consequences of his actions but simply because of a desire to inflict pain on animals as a form of entertainment

Comment: the case is interesting partly because this man had mental health issues which may have opened the door to using them as a defence in his prosecution. They might have argued that he did not have the sufficient intent to commit the crimes because of his personality disorders. But the experts found that he was perfectly able to comprehend what he was doing and the consequences thereof and therefore he stood trial and was found guilty.

It seems that the police didn't take that long to find him which indicates to me that the was either very careless in his acts of cruelty or was unconcerned about being arrested and tried.

Here is a Facebook post on the topic which fills in some gaps. Remember that FB posts sometimes stop working over time as they are deleted on FB.

Deliberate acts of cruelty against community cats in Singapore

A spate of deliberate acts of cruelty against community cats in Singapore is concerning to some residents. The type of wounds inflicted clearly indicate deliberate acts of violence against these cats. These are deep slash type wounds to their bodies. And it is not the first time this has happened. In this instance violence against cats has occurred in a residential district of Singapore called Ang Mo Kio. It is abbreviated as AMK. It is situated in the north-east of Singapore and is the third most populated planning area in the North-East region and ranks eighth in terms of population in the country overall.

Ang Mo Kio cats have been slashed by abuser. Photos: Ang Mo Kio South Caregivers and Feeders

To be perfectly frank, what is happening in Singapore happens all over the world in developed countries. It's identical. The overall scenario is absolutely typical. Society has abandoned cats through irresponsible cat ownership. These are domesticated cats. They become community cats and some of them produce offspring who become feral cats. The upshot is that you get cats without homes living on the streets and in this instance, it happens to be in a place which is known for its order and cleanliness. The authorities in Singapore like to keep the place squeaky-clean.

That attitude must filter down or it filters up from the population and so when cats 'litter the streets' of an orderly society it must irritate some people. And those people who are insensitive to animal welfare are liable to be driven to abuse against these animals. Set against that there are residents who are better-disciplined and realise that although the cats spoil the appearance of the place (in the eyes of some) they have a duty to act humanely towards them because society put them there. It is not the fault of the cats and therefore they should not be punished in any way.

They should be helped and their number should be reduced in a humane way. That is why in Singapore, as occurs elsewhere, there are volunteers who practice TNR (trap-neuter-release) programs which gradually reduces the population size. Within those programs the cats are fed in the interests of their welfare.

Some residents don't understand how TNR works or disagree with it and therefore they think that feeding street cats promotes the spread of disease and encourages more street cats. And I suspect, that the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated this feeling of the spread of disease. A lot of people think that street cat spread diseases to people. They don't because the diseases that cats suffer from are nearly always not zoonotic by which I mean they are particular to the species and cannot be transferred to another species i.e. humans.

Unfortunately, Covid-19 is zoonotic and therefore it can be spread from cats to people. There is no doubt therefore, in my mind, that this spate of abuses and cruelty against cats has been prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic. On a philosophical level, if people feel free to abuse cats because of fears of getting Covid from them, they should turn their abuse to people because it is people who are far more likely to give them the disease.

Research indicates that it is unlikely that domestic cats transmit the disease to people. There is no current evidence of it. Some residents are making up their own minds without reference to science. They are fearful. It is this fear which sometimes drives people to do bad things.

However, animal cruelty has no place in the society of any developed country or indeed any country developed or undeveloped. Animals are sentient beings. They feel pain and pleasure just like humans. If people feel that the street cats are a nuisance, rather than being abusive towards them, they should do something positive about it. They should join the volunteers running TNR programs to reduce the numbers. They should learn about cat behaviour and responsible cat ownership and educate people on these topics. Education reduces the abandonment of cats. It is all about education. Ignorance is the source of cruelty towards animals.

Feline High-rise Syndrome

Feline High-rise Syndrome  refers to the range of injuries that a domestic cat will suffer when he or she falls from a great height off the balcony or through a window of an apartment.

People living in apartments in high-rise towers with their domestic cats need to be very careful when their cat goes out onto the balcony because they cannot assume that their cat knows best.  Domestic cats make mistakes notwithstanding that they are incredible athletes and very skilled at manoeuvring along narrow ledges at great heights.  

Also cats like to sit at apartment windows looking outside.  Is the window closed?  Is the window secure?  Perhaps there is some sort of device inserted into an open window which is loose and through which a cat could fall.

Singapore: 250 cats fall from high rise apartments every year. Fifty percent die on impact.

Although it is probably quite rare (but not in Singapore), cats and kittens can and do fall out of apartments.  Sometimes they're killed on impact with the ground.

However, it may surprise you that cats are not only excellent climbers they are also superb at falling from a great height, thankfully, but don't test it whatever you do.

Apparently, 90% of cats that fall out of apartments survive.  They survive because when they impact the ground they are relaxed.  Also, the domestic cat will fan out his or her body like a flying squirrel to break the fall and the terminal velocity for a domestic cat falling from an apartment balcony is 53 mph while skydivers fall at 140 mph, as I recall.

The interesting thing about this is that if a cat falls off a balcony between the second and seventh floor and survive the fall, their injuries may well be greater than if the cat has fallen from the eighth floor and higher.

This is because when falling from a lower floor the cat does not reached terminal velocity and because of that the vestibular system in the inner ear tells the cat to brace itself for a landing in which case the legs are stiffer, whereas once the cat reaches terminal velocity the vestibular system does not send this message whereupon the cat is in a relaxed state.  This ensures that less bones are broken (src: The Cat Its Behavior, Nutrition & Health).

The sort of bones that are broken are of course legs and jawbones.  The lower jaw hits the ground at about the same time as the legs and is pushed up into the upper jaw causing fractures and injuries to the face.  The chest can also be injured and this is a priority for a veterinarian to deal with as it can be life-threatening.

The remarkable fact, though, is that when falling from such a height, perhaps 100 feet, the can is able to survive.

Cats on balconies should wear a harness and be tethered to the wall so they cannot go over the edge (sounds gross I know but safe). Windows should be firmly closed and locked. Or if open, secure systems put in place to keep the cat safe.