Filenews 25 September 2025
More than a million stray cats are estimated in Cyprus, according to what the Commissioner for Environment and Animal Welfare Antonia Theodosiou said in Parliament on Wednesday. As she explained, her office has already drawn up an action plan and – based on calculations in collaboration with animal welfare organizations – it will take about seven years to control the population through mass sterilizations.
The President of the Environment Committee, Charalambos Theopemptou, stressed that the annual budget of €100,000 for mass sterilizations included in the state budget "is not effective" and called for more substantial planning.
Mr. Theopemptou reminded that the issue of sterilizations and the management of the excessive number of stray cats is being discussed "for the umpteenth time" in the Environment Committee, underlining the need for immediate and organized intervention.
"Many statistics show that we may be the number one country in the world in terms of stray cats in proportion to population. The Government has an amount that is not enough, it is about €100,000 for sterilizations. Cats exceed the population of the country and with these amounts and without any proper planning we just spend money without having any results, which has been proven because we have been doing it for many years. We do the same thing, they know it doesn't work and they repeat it," he added.
The time has come, he continued, "when we have to make a proper plan to have a result, otherwise the state is just spending money."
"Animal welfare organizations are tired, they can't stand it. It is a huge issue that causes many quarrels and someone must finally sit down, make a proper plan, allocate the funds, solve the problem because we cannot continue with this mess that we have and for which unfortunately one cannot hope that something different will happen in the future", said Mr. Theopemptou.
He has a saying, he added, "that everyone who has been in this position until now and had these responsibilities should know, that if you do what you did, you will get what you got."
"It is not possible for so many years to do the same thing, not to have a result and to insist every year to do the same thing and they know in advance that it does not work," he added.
Answering a question, Mr. Theopemptou said that today they examined the issue again because the budgets were prepared.
"Therefore, we also had the meaning of knowing what has happened so far in the 2025 budget and to be ready when the debate on next year's budgets begins in two weeks," he said.
But, he added, "from what I have understood we will not see any change. They will simply repeat the summary of a €100,000 budget and nothing else. Basically, we will do again what we did last year, and the year before and we will do it next year and they know in advance that it doesn't work."
Asked about the plan submitted by veterinarians, Mr. Theopemptou said that the veterinarians have submitted a plan to the Government, they have given it to them now, but, as he said, "there is no procedure through which a private association can come and say 'if you give me money I will do this job', that is, the procedures and the EU Public Procurement legislation, I don't know how it will be overcome."
"The right procedure is for the state to decide that it will do this thing, to make offers, to get prices from veterinarians and veterinary clinics and to distribute the offers to the municipalities and animal welfare organizations so that they know the price that will be paid to the specific person who received the offer who will go to do a sterilization. This is the correct procedure legally, otherwise everything else you have to start another process," he noted.
The Commissioner for the Environment and Animal Welfare, Antonia Theodosiou, in her statements said that "we support the mass sterilization of cats, there is already a national program with the provision of €100,000 per year for the sterilization of cats by the Ministry of Agriculture".
"We believe as an Office that it should be multiplied to make the measure more effective than it is today," he added.
Ms. Theodosiou said that what she wants to touch on on the occasion she is in Parliament today is that the submission of the amending law of the dog law is pending by the Environment Committee of the Parliament, which concerns important measures that are proposed to be taken for the welfare of dogs and needs to be submitted to the Plenary before the closure of this Parliament.
Asked if there is any data on how many cats have been sterilized to date, the Commissioner said that there are estimates for the number of cats on a nationwide basis, according to which they exceed the number of one million.
She said that her Office has drawn up an action plan, for which it has contacted the Presidency recently, adding that according to calculations made in collaboration with animal welfare organizations, a period of 7 years will be needed to be able to control the cat population through mass sterilization.
The action plan, he said, will be communicated to the three Ministries, which also concern this issue, to make their decisions.
Besides, referring to the complaints she receives on the issue of bird trapping, Ms. Theodosiou said that "I already know that the Game and Fauna Service has already denounced this one many times for illegal trapping". "I hope that at this time the two co-competent Ministries will take their measures," he noted.
The President of Cat Alert Nicosia, Elena Loizidou, in her statements said that for years there seems to be no substantial intention of all parties to control the population of stray cats and effectively promote their well-being.
"While the population of stray cats is growing in unprecedented numbers (we may have reached two million) and while the responsibility of all stray animals falls within the competences of the state, the burden seems to have been placed on volunteer animal lovers, organized and not," he added.
He noted that stray cats are sterilized in private veterinary clinics and the cost is borne by the citizens of the country.
"Next to them, let's not forget the sick, the abused, the newborns, those hit by cars. The state's attempt to sterilize two thousand cats through a fund of €100,000, does not seem to have much benefit and a real reduction in their number," said Ms. Loizidou.
"If in this issue the state continues to be theoretically present but essentially absent thousands of cats in each season will die before they can open their eyes and thousands more will lose their lives from poisons," he said.
He said, at the same time, that Cat Alert Nicosia proposes that any funds approved every year be given for the operation of non-profit clinics (one in each province), with the employment of veterinarians by the state, for the year-round sterilization of stray and semi-owned cats, as well as the employment by the Municipalities of people who, with the appropriate equipment and in cooperation with animal welfare organizations, can contribute to the trapping of stray cats and their transfer to these Clinics.
"It would be very helpful to promote and enact legislation for cats, in order to prevent the abandonment of newborn kittens and possibly oblige those who feed kittens outdoors to sterilize them," he said, adding that "a prerequisite of course would be access to sterilizations at zero cost, so that this is feasible and a large number of sterilizations can be carried out."
CNA
