In a bizarre phenomenon, at least 18 abandoned Sphynx cats have been found wandering the streets of a neighborhood in south Tel Aviv since the start of this year.
The cats were first discovered when Olga Bayeb, a resident of Yad Eliyahu, noticed two Sphynx cats in a box when she came to the area to feel local strays.
"The cats didn't try to escape, but they were scared and miserable. They're not built for living outside, they're very delicate and can't handle the street conditions," Bayeb said.
"I started looking for a solution because they wouldn't survive the cold. I asked my daughter for help, and she contacted a friend of hers who posted a message on Facebook about the cats."
Liat Peretz, a resident of Ashdod saw the Facebook post, decided to take over the care of the abandoned cats and find them a suitable home.
"I saw the post on Facebook. I spoke with Olga and we agreed that my sister Moran, who lives in Tel Aviv, would pick them up and pass them on to me," Peretz says.
"The next day, Olga called me and said there was another cat. I drove to Tel Aviv and rescued it. A day after, she called again and said there was another one, and so on until I found myself with six Sphynx cats.
"It was a very cold and rainy week, so I took five of them and one of my neighbors adopted the sixth. I neutered them and found suitable homes for four of them, while adopting one myself," Peretz added.
About two weeks ago, Olga contacted Peretz again, and it turned out she found five more cats. "We were able to catch them, but then we found even more. In total, 12 Sphynx cats were found in the past two weeks, one of whom was sadly found dead and another one pregnant," Peretz said.
"I choose to whom hand over the cats to make sure they get to a good home. People come from all over the country to adopt them," she added.
"I don't get why people abandoned the cats instead of finding them a warm home, especially this kind of breed which is very easy to find adoption for. It's a good thing Liat was willing to come every time from Ashdod to take them. Her family also participated in the rescue effort, and her partner even came once to take them," Bayeb said.
Peretz and Bayeb assume that there is an illegal breeding farm in the area, which simply gets rid of the unwanted cats. The cats that were found were of all ages, and some of them were in bad medical condition when found.
The two added that pet exploitation for breeding purposes is not new, and it is always better to adopt animals than to buy them in order to prevent the continuation of the phenomenon.
"They often breed cats and then get rid of them. People buy animals for thousands of shekels because it's a nice picture for Instagram. As part of our effort to search for the source of these breeding farms, we Facebook-searched Sphynx breeders, and we saw people selling old cats that can no longer procreate. In the pictures, cats were seen in bad shape, and they looked like they were used for mass breeding," said Peretz.
Thanks to good citizenship by Peretz and Bayeb, 17 of the 18 cats were adopted and found a warm home.