At the Luxembourg Animal Shelter in Gasperich, it is all too common for cats to be brought in without a microchip and without being neutered.
Since the Animal Welfare Law came into effect in 2018, cat owners have been required to have their outdoor cats neutered and microchipped, with the chip registered on a recognised online platform such as ChipID, ICat, or Tasso, the only exception applying to cats kept on agricultural holdings.
However, many owners skip this last step, failing either to microchip or to register the chip.
As a result, the shelter cannot identify the owners of many of the animals brought in, which makes it impossible to reunite lost cats with their families, even though the shelter routinely advertises found cats on its website.
The reality, explained Loïc Feltgen, who works at the Gasperich Animal Shelter, is that the chance of a lost cat being returned to its owner remains slim. "Last year, the return rate for found cats was just under 17%," he said.
This does not just mean heartbreak for owners and animals, but it also places a significant strain on the shelter’s capacity. With so many unidentified cats arriving, space and resources are quickly stretched to their limits.
Not every cat taken in by shelters is a lost pet. A significant population of cats in Luxembourg has never had an owner at all. These feral or stray cats often go uncounted and unseen.
Feltgen estimated that the shelter holds over 10,000 stray cats in Luxembourg at the moment. He added that as a shelter, they can confirm the numbers are rising.
Last year, the shelter opened a new cattery, but even this additional capacity was rapidly filled. "We created space, and it was immediately used up," he pointed out.
Responsible for marketing and communications for the Luxembourg Animal Welfare League, Feltgen spends much of his time photographing animals available for adoption and raising public awareness about crucial animal welfare topics.
Unneutered cats do not just lead to an overpopulation problem. Inbreeding among stray cats increases the risk of genetic diseases, and many feral cats suffer from poor living conditions, hunger, or illness.
There is also another major challenge, namely "territorial fighting, especially among males, who will fight to mark their territory," Feltgen explained.
Organisations such as A Heart for Strays ('Een Haerz vir Streuner') are also working to address the issue by trapping and neutering stray cats to help manage the population and improve animal welfare.
To draw public attention to the issue, the Animal Shelter in Gasperich, together with other shelters, launched a public awareness campaign.
The initiative wrapped up at the beginning of July, but the message remains relevant: the only way to achieve long-term control of the stray cat population is continued vigilance. "We want to make sure this problem is brought under control in the long run," says Feltgen.
For now, the campaign's evaluation is still pending, but as long as cats continue to reproduce unchecked, the call remains: "Chip. Neuter. Register."
