you dont have to feel sorry for the cats, most are not strays and they get fed, as with all cats they will always eat if there is food on offer. they look skinny in the summer but that is their summer state, it's the heat. if you go in winter they look like the cats we have in this country. i have some photos of cats in winter, if you would like to see them please get in touch

sahha

alan

yes I'd love to see pictures of winter cats on Malta
Jo

I take your point, happychef, as most of the cats do look slender rather than malnourished, certainly around Qawra and Bugibba. But when my friend Karen and I stayed at Sundown Court, Kappara, the cats living around there were quite slim and one was obviously pregnant (we called her Mama). There was a little black one we called Malti who used to come and sleep on our sunbeds, a black one called Bagira but the saddest was a tiny little tortieshell kitten that was really pitiful, they all looked in need of some love and fussing and they had such beautiful natures. The manager at the hotel restaurant had a hell of time keeping them off the tables once people had finished their meals and rumour had it Malti and Mama raided the breakfast table one morning!!

As animal lovers ourselves i have to say my partner and I got rather upset about some of the cats we saw on our holiday to malta the other week. We had a lovely time apart from that, but getting upset about the cats has made us question whether we would go back.
We stayed at the Coastline hotel, near bugibba, where a few cats seem to hang around the grounds. In particular there was a kitten who was so tiny and obviously unwell with some sort of eye infection.
It would make me feel a little better if i knew the hotel staff were kind to them and did feed them. On my last day i did notice some water which had been left out for them which made me feel a bit better!

Hi Sunbeame

Did you enjoy your stay at the Coastline? We fly out to Malta and are staying at the Coastline for a week. Any tips?

Luccii

Hi sunbeame,

My wife and son stayed at the Coastline during February this year. We are cat lovers and we have taken in a stray which came to us a couple of years ago. He's just cost us £85 (and that was just the excess on the insurance!) cause he has been injured in a fight with some other cat. Well after telling you that my son came back with some photos of the cats at the hotel (during their Winter!) and they haven't felt they were badly treated. We've been to other destinations where it would really break your heart if you saw how they treat cats!

However we're going to the Coastline in August and will certainly have a look at the cat situation.

luccii, fear not about the Coastline. We know Malta well and have stayed at this hotel before and as I have already said have chosen it yet again. We've stayed at lots of hotels in Malta over the years and can say that although it's not the only decent hotel on the Island it's certainly not one of the bad ones! Enjoy your stay and please let's know how it goes,

Trev

Thanks Trev, i'm glad you think the cats at the coastline are treated ok. There were a couple of ginger cats that did look alright but there was a little balck and white one and also kitten that looked worringly tiny and also had some sort of eye problem. I am hoping the staff perhaps take pity and give them the occassional scraps!

May i ask where you have been where the cats are not treated well (just the names of the places....no horror stories needed!!) - just so we can make sure we avoid these places in the furture.

Luccii - apart from getting upset about the cats we were VERY impressed with the coastline. It is a lovely hotel and we thought the food was brilliant! Not the best location but a very good free bus service if you want to go to some shops. Enjoy your stay!!

Thanks Trev and sunbeame , we fly tomorrow and I can't wait. I will post on here when we get back.

Luccii

Hi Luccii,

Hope you read this before you go - we wish you the best holiday ever and hope come back with lots of lovely good memories and you fall in love with those magnificent sun drenched Islands.

Hi sunbeame,

Well the place where we were absolutely appallled by how cats were treated was at the Soviva Hotel in Port El Kantoui Tunisia. I'll not give you any details as you requested that but we hated the place and would never go there again!

Just to let you know our cat's doing well and getting lots of fuss from us though he does look quite funny with his shaven leg! After what you mentioned about the cats at the Coastline we'll just make sure that they all look fine when we go and if there are any that do look in need of attention we will alert the staff. I've no doubt we'll probably buy them some treats while we're there anyway!

I do agree with what you said to Luccii about the Coastline and although we generally like to stay in the Sliema area (not Paceville, St Julians!!), we chose the Coastline because it's easy to park our hire car there and it's nicely placed to get to most places especially the ferry to Gozo,

Trev

Have just come back from Qawra area today and have to say that all the cats and kittens we saw looked well fed and appear to be pets (plenty of pet shops around as well!).

Went to Mellieha area 10 years ago and there was a pack of starving ferral cats there then. Logged on to my aol account this morning and they are featuring a holidays from hell forum so thought would have a look and sadly found the following review - guess I'm allowed to post this in:-

Edit
Sorry - you can not copy from another website. However, perhaps you post the link?
Fiona Ht mod
Sorry if this is upsetting - if anyone has stayed at the Jerma Palace perhaps they could confirm/update - glad it was out of my price range

Hi Sunbeame

We returned from the Coastline this morning, we had a great time, the cats I saw were thin, but looked happy enough, people were feeding them (myself included) and staff did not seem to have a problem with this, I also saw them sunbathing looking quite relaxed!

Lucci

Link for previous posting

here

It's about the 5th review on the page

(edited to shorten link)

I have just read this on AOL and wished I hadn't. I really do hope it is not true. As a cat lover and owner myself it made me want to cry.

This hotel is used by quite a lot of British Tour Operators - Mercury, Chevron - not sure if Portland still use it. We went to the Jerma Palace a few years back now and it was pretty good although its reputation seems to have gone slightly downhill.

I will check out other web sites which have hotel reviews and see if I find anything similar regarding the cats.

I think in general the cats are reasonably well looked after in Malta - the last time we were there we found a 'cat sanctuary' behind one of the hotels in St. Julians where there were boxes for donations towards food etc. Wherever you go in the Med the cats do tend to look thinner than our fat 'moggies'.

Pippa

Well I'm absolutely gutted and disgusted with what I have read!!!! Words fail me but as a frequent visitor to Malta I certainly ain't gonna ever remotely consider staying at the disgusting Jerma Palace Hotel even if I was filthy rich and it was 10 star!!!!

I hope they read this and realise that us decent Brits are quite civilised and don't like the way they're treating their cats!!!!

I know only too well of course that this is NOT typical of Maltese behaviour and their attitude towards cats!

Trev

It's grim reading and a real shame as all the cats we saw last week were so obviously well fed. We'd considered taking a bag of IAMS with us before we went as 10 years ago we had a pack of cats in Mellieha eating our crisps anyway forgot to do so and there was no need - then came back and read the review. I do appreciate that from the Jerma Hotel's point of view a pack of feral cats is probably not to their liking but am sure they could contact an animal sanctuary and have the problem dealt with in a more humane way

Darius you're right about a more humane method of getting rid of these feral cats. I would hope that the management of the Jerma Palace if they read this, would consider that approach to the problem in the future. Have they tried to find alternative homes for them? I would have thought that it would be very desireable to have some cats around the hotels to keep down the vermin so if the kittens were neutered this might help keep the number of cats down.

The comment about the cats at the Coastline looking rather thin - I think that this is probably due to the high temperatures. Our cat who is in excellent health, looks very thin at the moment but this is mainly because coat is much thinner in the summer.

Trev

There are a lot of homeless cats on Malta, but yes, they do often get fed and have food left for them. I think that they do an important job of keeping a check on vermin but the numbers are becoming overwhelming. Not all Maltese are as charitable towards the strays.

Also I'm not sure if they would get any medical treatment or general care because people are funding their food out of their own money or scant donations. There is a house down the end of our road with a postbox outside where the lady collects donations for catfood and she looks after the cats in the 'cat village' which is opposite her house.

The National Cat Society of Malta is working to help care for these creatures and runs a neutering program to prevent unwanted kittens. If you want to help the situation then visit their website and make a donation!

http://maltesecats.2kat.net/

Well

I have just got back from St Jullians, I saw about 3 at hotel and 1 other.

but I did how ever see lots of plasic containers dotted about with water in them.

Chel xxx

Thanks Chel,

I have always thought that the cats are generally looked after in Malta and like in the UK it's just the odd uncaring 'low life' (like the staff of the Jerma Palace!!!!) that treat them badly!

Trev