The subsidies not only cover the cost of sterilising the animals, but also the cost of caring for colonies and their surroundings. The city currently has 160 identified cat colonies, with a total of 7,300 cats.

The funding for 2022 is the same as the previous year, the goal being to control current colonies, reduce overpopulation and take action in spaces where people abandon cats.

The application period is for twenty working days, starting from the day after the call is published in the Official Gazette of the Province of Barcelona (BOPB). Organisations applying for subsides must be operating in at least two of the eleven established zones, which include the ten city districts and the Zona Franca.

The programme started in 2003 with the Full Council approving a move to stop putting down animals in the city, except for clinical reasons, and in the context of care and control through the CSR method (control, sterilisation and return).

This approach was backed up in 2012 with the Municipal Declaration on Animal Rights, the fifth point of which establishes: “Any wild animal born outside of captivity has the right to continue living freely and to be respected as a being it its own environment or natural habitat”.

Organisations forming part of the programme

Thirteen organisations currently manage the city’s feral cat colonies under the programme subsidised by the City Council to this end. The organisations in question are Progat, Fundació Silvestre and the eleven associations belonging to the Plataforma Gatera.