The Extraordinary Lives Of Istanbul�s Street Cats

The full article: http://www.citylab.com/housing/2016/04/istanbul-street-cats-kedi-documentary/479805/

You’ll find them greeting foreign dignitaries at one of the city’s most famous sights, lounging on café chairs and shop displays, and lapping up attention wherever they go. They have their own Instagram account, and custom-built shelters and feeding stations on the city’s streets. Forget the Byzantines and the Ottomans: The real conquerors of Istanbul are its street cats.

And why so….

People in Istanbul have long cared for the city’s non-human residents: In the Ottoman era, many houses were constructed with cat doors, and many mosques with built-in birdhouses, says Torun. “Many people told me, if you’re a true Muslim, you’re a lover of all animals,” she adds, explaining that the texts of Islam, Turkey’s majority faith, include stories about the Prophet Muhammad’s particular love for cats.

The kindness continues despite modernisation:

“The more every bit of green space and soil in the city is flattened and paved over, the more inhospitable it becomes to cats,” Torun says. “And you’ve really started seeing a lot more people putting out food and water for street animals over the last five to ten years as summers have become hotter. There’s a bigger push to see that they’re OK.”

Torun’s film documents the signs of that commitment, which are visible all over the city: the cat shelters constructed out of Styrofoam packing boxes; the bowls of food and water with signs such as “Cat restaurant, bon appétit” and “If you don’t want to be desperate for a drink of water in the next life, don’t touch these cups”; the neighbors who rack up huge vet bills for cats that aren’t even their own.

“We’re more worried about what will happen to the cats than to us,” one man living in an area scheduled for redevelopment tells Torun in the film. “If this neighborhood gets torn down, they won’t have anyone.”

Please do read the full article.

Kindness is our inherent true nature. Look deep within and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise (especially politicians and law-makers)!  The street animals need us to help them.

Source: https://myanimalcare.org/2016/04/30/the-extraordinary-lives-..

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AnimalCare is a registered society that promotes caregiving to street animals and helps in their neutering and medical needs. AnimalCare has a Medical Fund, Food Fund and Education Fund.

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