Harties Feral Cat Rescue and the woman behind it.
Founder and Chairman, Joanne Kontaxopoulos – Rabe has a burning passion for Cats. She is forcing her way through the enormous task of being a fulltime logistics manager for an exports company and a dedicated animal right activist.
She believes that the problem solving, analytical, organizing and negotiating skills she accumulated in the logistics field is of huge value to the daily balance she needs to find between her home life, work and charity. Her husband is very supportive and although he is a busy man himself, he helps her whenever he can.
Harties Feral Cat Rescue are guardians to almost 800 cats dotted across the greater Hartbeespoort area, and have spayed in excess of 1200.
She underlines the fact that irresponsible pet owners are to blame for this crisis. They abandon their unsterilized cats. These cats then form colonies around available food sources and for protection. A female cat produces one or two litters of four to six kittens in her first year and then three litters annually. The cost of sterilizing female animals for low income households are unobtainable even at low cost sterilization clinics, further adding to the vicious cycle of abandonment.
Feral cats play and important role in the overall eco system as they help to control rodents and snakes. Some people are advocating that feral cats are a pest and dangerous to our birdlife but Joanne assured us that cats are opportunistic feeders. They will eat whatever is easiest to find such as people’s garbage and prey where they can sit and wait for the prey, such as a rodent burrow. If ferals are fed you remove the need for them to feed from garbage, thus removing their nuisance factor.
Joanne found the Rescue in 2017 when she realized that the eco estate that she lived in, had issues with feral cats that bothered the residents and she instinctively knew that she should make a difference.
Joanne’s advice to home owners: “If you have a stray cat causing you headaches at your home, you can fix the problem by putting out food for the cat outside your property. Harties Feral Cat Rescue have regular spayathons where they sterilise feral cats.”
Joanne believes that people are uninformed and that contributes to the problem instead of finding a solution.
“My message to business owners and our community is; GET INVOLVED! Do your bit for the environment and help us sterilize and feed the colonies (groups of homeless cats living together) so that they will not increase in numbers but will still be there to assist us in pest control.”
If you would like to assist by giving donations or take part in charity drives or even help as a volunteer, please contact them through the website: hartiesferalcats.co.za.
You can become a monthly patron by donating R250 per month. This will purchase one 10kg bag of cat food that will feed approximately 66 cats per day. In return this NPO will be able to issue you a section 18A certificate. One of the directors of this NPO, Diana Reyneke is a qualified Tax Practitioner.
If one woman can dedicate her life to helping us, please let us help her reach her goals. Together we can do this!