“Before believing that what the RSPCA and Cats Protection say must be correct, please take some (time) to do some research.”
“Before believing that what the RSPCA and Cats Protection say must be correct, please take some (time) to do some research.”
A Wirral cat rescue has hit back at RSPCA claims that cat cafes should be “phased out” due to “serious welfare concerns”. The national charity recently claimed it was “almost impossible” to properly look after cats in such cafes, which have boomed in popularity in the past financial year.
A recent Freedom of Information (FOI) request by the charity revealed there are currently over 30 cat cafés licensed in England, with 44% of licences being granted in the last year alone.
This includes the Jackson’s Rescue Cat Café in Hoylake, which opened last year to raise funds for Jackson’s Animal Rescue, as it looks after both wild and domestic animals in Wirral and North Wales. The café, on Market Street, is a temporary home for several former alley cats, who will be put up for adoption later this year.
In a statement posted on the cafe’s Facebook page, it said: “We wanted to take a little break from the cute cat pics to write a very quick post about the news article circling today that RSPCA and Cats Protection believe that cat cafes should be phased out. We wouldn’t want any of our lovely customers worrying.
“What they say is that cafes can cause cats to have forced interaction with people. Anyone who has visited us knows that this doesn’t happen at our café, as the cats have an entire top floor where customers do not access, and they can go there whenever they want to. Mallory and Jenson don’t even come downstairs until 3pm! They do whatever they want and nothing is forced.
“To gain our license, we had to gain cat welfare qualifications, and display a HUGE amount of policies and protocols relating to cat welfare. Behaviours are monitored daily, and we are proud to have a wide variety of cat personalities with us, but all of which are very happy or they simply wouldn’t be here at the café.
“We do agree however that licensing should be strict, and for Wirral it certainly was, and that’s a great thing! But we do see cafes operating in other areas without any licensing at all, and this is of course a concern and something that shouldn’t happen.
“The Rescue Cat Café only benefits the rescue, and the cats. All profits from our café are put towards the work at our Mold rescue, where we admit up to 250 cats a year that need our help.
“We are not a business, and no person or private business is financially benefiting from the profit from our café like business cafes. We have cats with us with health issues that need long term monitoring such as Sushi, and she has hugely benefited from this environment.”
Currently, licencing for cat cafes is not mandatory, which means some businesses may operate without the regulation of the local authority. Those that are inspected by local authorities are licensed under the regulations concerned with the keeping or training of animals for exhibition, as there is no cat-specific café license.
Both the RSPCA and Cats Protection have called on local authorities not to grant new exhibition licences for these establishments and not to renew existing licences in an effort to wipe them out.
Alice Potter, a cat welfare expert at the RSPCA, said: “We adore cats, and so we understand the appeal of cat cafés. While cats, cake and coffee might be a happy combination for people, for the cats living in these cafés it’s likely to be a very different story.
“We don’t believe these environments can consistently provide cats with a good quality of life and are hugely concerned that many cats will be unhappy as a result.
“Having descended from solitary, territorial, roaming wildcats, they’re likely to find the enforced proximity to other felines as well as unfamiliar visitors wishing to stroke them extremely stressful. Generally, cats are not sociable and many felines often prefer to live without other cats or prefer to form social groups with their relations.
“Sharing an enclosed space and resources with other unrelated cats can lead to a range of negative feelings and emotions resulting in aggression and behavioural issues. It isn’t always easy to identify whether a cat’s welfare is compromised as the signs can often be very subtle, easily missed or misinterpreted. But we fear this could be widespread in cat cafés, however well-meaning these places may be.”
Jackson’s Rescue Cat Café urged its customers: “Before believing that what the RSPCA and Cats Protection say must be correct, please take some (time) to do some research.”