Eco Hvar

Feeding cats in Brela

Published in Forum items
I am staying at the Hotel Berulia in Brela and have been feeding a mother,father and five kittens about (10 weeks old). Do they get rid of the kittens in the winter when there are no guests?
I know my airline takes pets, but this may be very traumatic for them and it would be difficult to leave some. I have 5 days till I go back to Zagreb for a flight back on Mon, so there is not a lot of time. Can you help or give me advice?
G., UK Visitor to Brela (a coastal resort on the Dalmatian mainland), 14th July 2014
 
I am sorry I couldn't reply to your email earlier, and obviously I am now too late to advise you before your return home.. I have been away, and am just catching up with the backlog.
During the summer, cats in the tourist resorts are generally well looked after by kind people like yourself. In the normal course of things, the mother will gradually find alternative sources of food for her kittens, and set them on their way to independent living. It is a good thing if the mother is given the opportunity to keep her kittens long enough to teach them what they need to know, and to bring about the natural separation.
Although they are dependent on humans to a great extent, cats are also very canny, and usually find ways of ensuring their survival. The main problem facing them here as elsewhere is the question of feeding increasing numbers if they are allowed to breed without any control. Where cat numbers are considered excessive, then sadly there is little help provided for them: there is no provision for sterilizing them, except privately by individuals, and very few catteries where they can be taken in and given basic shelter and support. Obviously one of Eco Hvar's aims is to remedy this situation, at least on Hvar.
I hope it will reassure you to think that 'your' kittens will almost certainly be fed and petted through the summer, so that by the time autumn comes they will be mature enough to hold their own.
I very much hope that you enjoyed your stay in Brela, one of the Dalmatian coast's many beautiful places.
Eco Hvar 23rd July 2014
 
Thank you for your reassuring reply. I managed to find out most if the information with regards to the cats. Although the airline I was travelling with did carry animals, the problem was the pet passport. If they are too young to get the rabies jag (which by the size of them I think they were), they would have to go in to quarantine for 6 months. The nearest one where I live is 3 hours away, so it would be difficult to maintain a relationship with them. It would also have been extremely traumatic removing them from their mother and then placing them in the cattery for 6 months. U.K. is very strict, I could have sorted it, if they could have got the rabies blood test, as you only have to wait 21days, and I would have got someone to look after them for this time. It was not  to be, and yes it would be better if there was a neutering program - but this costs money and sometimes countries have other priorities.
I loved Brela and the  Dalmatian coastline was spectacular - unfortunately I didn't make it to Hvar - maybe next time!  I wish you well in your venture, and if there is anything I can help with (I will check your website again for updates) let me know and I will try to help.
G., 24th July 2014
More in this category: « Stray cat in Hvar Town Glyphosate comment »
back to top
You are here: Home forum items Feeding cats in Brela

Eco Environment News feeds

  • Farage’s Clacton-on-Sea constituency worst ‘tree desert’ in England, research shows

    Woodland Trust also finds significant north-south divide in tree cover, leaving many people at risk of poor health

    Nigel Farage’s constituency of Clacton-on-Sea is a “tree desert”, leaving people more exposed to air pollution, poorer health, lower life expectancy and the impact of rising temperatures, according to a new report.

    The Essex town is rated the worst-performing for equal access to trees in England, with the highest proportion of urban residents – 98.2% – living in neighbourhoods with critically low access to trees.

    Continue reading...

  • UN members prepare for pivotal vote on landmark ICJ climate justice ruling

    If resolution is passed, governments will recognisetheir legal responsibility to cut greenhouse gas emissions

    The UN’s willingness to tackle the climate crisis in a fair and legal way will be tested next week during a critical vote of the UN general assembly in New York.

    Every member state is being asked to back a series of landmark findings on climate justice from the international court of justice (ICJ) as part of a new political resolution. If passed, it will mean governments recognise they have a legal responsibility to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, including tackling fossil fuels.

    Continue reading...

  • Choughs reappear at Tintagel Castle in Cornwall after decades of absence

    King Arthur is said to have transformed into a chough when he died, its red feet and beak representing his bloody end

    Decades after disappearing from the jagged cliffs around Tintagel Castle on the coast of north Cornwall, a bird with legendary connections to the area has returned.

    The custodian of Tintagel, English Heritage, and local ornithologists have declared that choughs – charismatic corvids with red beaks and feet – are back.

    Continue reading...

  • Typical English roast dinner potentially ‘drenched’ in 102 pesticides, says report

    Greenpeace finds cocktail of pesticides including seven banned in EU may have been used on seven categories of vegetables and soft fruit

    It is a beautiful early summer Sunday afternoon and you have stopped for a pub lunch. A waiter sets down a roast served with carrots, peas, parsnips, potatoes and onion gravy, and then for pudding, strawberries and cream. It feels like the perfect rustic meal to accompany a day in the country.

    However, a report by Greenpeace, published on Thursday, has found that the ingredients of the traditional Sunday roast have potentially been treated with a cocktail of more than 100 pesticides. Data from the Fera pesticide usage survey for 2024, showed 102 – including seven banned in the EU – were used on seven vegetable and soft fruit categories.

    Continue reading...

  • Roots of resilience: the experts working to bolster apples against the climate crisis

    Scientists are focusing on improving apples’ resilience after stressors like wild temperature swings and drought

    Terence Robinson still remembers the Valentine’s Day Massacre – of 2015, not 1929.

    For the Cornell University horticulture professor, the term doesn’t conjure up Tommy guns and Al Capone’s Chicago. Instead of a gangster, the culprit in Robinson’s massacre was the weather. And its victims were the apple orchards of the north-eastern United States.

    Continue reading...

  • Why the weather was on no one’s side in general strike of 1926

    A warm spell mitigated some of the effects of the strike but colder weather would have taken their own toll

    May 1926 is remembered in Britain for the general strike, when the TUC called out millions of workers in support of miners who had been locked out while fighting a pay cut.

    The strike, which lasted from 3 May to 12 May, took place during a spell of relatively mild weather with little rain. Transport was disrupted but fine conditions allowed many people to walk or cycle to work. There was a shortage of coal but this was mitigated because there was less need for heating. The TUC, fearing legal action and doubting the strike could be sustained, called it off after nine days.

    Continue reading...

  • Country diary: This weary traveller has escaped the hunter’s gun | Sarah Lambert

    Maxey Cut, Cambridgeshire: There’s so much precious wildlife around this old flood-relief channel, including sea trout and eels. But I’ve come to hear the purr of the turtle dove

    The morning air is moist and utterly still. Above the flood bank, dappled grey cirrocumulus parts to a clear blue. Birds sound from every side: the cuckoo’s insistent call over a chorus of warblers – the sedge warbler’s machine-gun rattle, the willow warbler’s falling cadence, and, piercing them all, the explosive eruptions of a Cetti’s warbler buried deep in cover.

    But it is the turtle dove that I have come to hear: that low, tender purring, almost lost in the greater chorus. When it comes, my heart lifts. I find a lone bird on a telegraph wire, one of its favoured perches. Through the binoculars, I make out a pink-grey breast, a neat black-and-white collar, and rust‑red feathers on the back, each one finely marked with black.

    Continue reading...

  • Go big or go home: how The Lost Giants revived the ancient art of goliath-making

    Ever fancied creating your own enormous effigy? One Cornish art collective has reinvigorated the practice – and now they want to draw on the public’s skills, too

    This New Year’s Eve, environmentalist and author Lisa Schneidau did something she had never done before. She welcomed in 2026 with giants. “At a certain time of the evening, they started appearing from all over the town. Then everyone flooded out of their houses and congregated into a massive procession of giants and lights and drums and music. It was absolutely extraordinary.”

    Schneidau’s fairytale experience happened in Lostwithiel, the Cornish home town of the art collective The Lost Giants (TLG), a group of craftspeople and artists reviving the British tradition of making giants and beasties and goliaths. The giants she celebrated with were made of wooden frames and cloth, papier-mache and card, but were full of life.

    To apply for a giant, go to The Lost Giants website

    Continue reading...

  • Yorkshire’s WallFest launched to protect crumbling boundary wall of ‘world’s first nature reserve’

    Pioneering environmentalist Charles Waterton enclosed his parkland and lake near Wakefield in the 1820s

    Over four years in the 1820s, Charles Waterton built a 9ft-high, 3-mile-long wall around the parkland and lake of Walton Hall. The fox- and poacher-proof boundary enclosed what could be the world’s first nature reserve, completed in Yorkshire 200 years ago.

    Waterton, an eccentric, controversial and pioneering environmentalist, built nest boxes, special banks for sand martins and innovative bird hides, and offered local people sixpence for every hedgehog they brought into his reserve.

    Continue reading...

  • ‘You have to be where the pollution is’: the inventor hoping to fix your washing machine to stop microplastics

    Matter Industries founder Adam Root has developed a filter to trap microfibres at home and on an industrial scale. But is it just a drop in the ocean?

    The dinky device slots seamlessly into the modest space above my washing machine. A pipe snakes down from it, drawing in wastewater from my clothes washes. At the end of each wash cycle, the machine makes a polite whirring noise: that’s the sound of the groundbreaking bit of technology working, according to its inventor, Adam Root. That invention is a microplastics filter.

    “The most common thing we hear [from customers] is: ‘I cannot believe how much material is coming out of the washing machine,’” says Root. “Somebody sent me [photos of] dinner-platefuls.”

    Continue reading...

Eco Health News feeds

Eco Nature News feeds

Copyright © 2026 Eco Hvar. All Rights Reserved. Developed by Orion Informatika.