Turkish Woman Braves The Weather To Feed 350 Stray Cats

The kind woman in this video, known only by her first name of Vera, ventures out every morning, despite the snow, to feed the approximately 350 cats that live in the coastal area of Kartal, on the Asian side of Istanbul.

Vera, along with other volunteers from the group Atalar Sahili Kedi Kisirlastirma Grubu bring food to the cats and pick up any who are injured or have not been fixed and take them to the vet. They hope to help curb the city’s large population of stray cats by slowly but surely spaying and neutering each cat. As for feeding, that’s another huge job, the large group of cats that live between the rocks in this coastal spot consume about 45 to 55 pounds of food each day!

There is no shelter for the cats, temporary shelters and cat houses will get washed away by the sea, one of the volunteers explains:  “There is no place to put shelters there unfortunately. From one side there is sea, from another the road. The cats hide inside the rocks. There are empty places deep between them. When the cats appear to be fed they are warm.”

Click here to see a man who opens the mosque’s doors to keep the stray cats warm