Photograph taken at at their recent 10 year anniversary celebration
Back row from left to right: Mandy Store, Lizelle Grobbelaar, Jeanne De Jager, Melanie Snyman, Cheryl-Ann Buirski, Loretta Jansen
Front row from left to right: Brenda Kerr (Queen B), Lorinda Synman, Jody Stewart, Tracy Dicks (Dr T), Claire Shadbolt, Lorna Chase
Absent: Celeste van Schalkwyk
Written by Cheryl-Ann Buirski – Feral Cat Project Cape Town Volunteer
Photographs supplied by Feral Cat Project Cape Town
Ten years. 35,175 cats sterilised. Countless lives changed. And a group of extraordinary women who simply refuse to stop.
On the 29th of August 2026, Feral Cat Project Cape Town (FCP) celebrated a remarkable milestone: ten years of changing the lives of Cape Town’s feral and indigent community cats.
And then there’s the number – 35,175 cats sterilised. Thirty-five thousand, one hundred and seventy-five cats.
It’s a number so enormous that it almost becomes difficult to comprehend. Behind every single one of those cats, however, is a story – a trap set in the darkness or a carrier prepared, a frightened pair of eyes, a journey to a sterilisation clinic, gentle hands, medical care, and eventually a return to the place that cat knows as home.
Feral Cat Project Cape Town is committed to promoting the welfare of feral and community cats through sterilisation, research, education and awareness – but at its heart is something wonderfully simple: a belief that every cat deserves a life of dignity and care.
It all started with a few Queens
In August 2016, FCP officially stepped out on its own after its beginnings working alongside TEARS Animal Rescue.
What started as a small group grew into a dedicated network of volunteers united by a common purpose: sterilise to stop the uncontrolled breeding and to care for and protect Cape Town’s cats.
Many of those early volunteers are still involved today. Along the way, new faces have joined. The team affectionately call themselves the Feral Queens. And, as anyone involved in rescue will tell you, once you’re in, you’re never really out. “It’s truly like the Mafia – once in, you can’t ever leave (nor want to).”
There’s laughter behind the joke, but also a great deal of truth.
The Queens behind the cats
At the centre of this remarkable team is Brenda Kerr – Queen B.
Brenda has been the glue that holds the Feral Queens together: guiding and educating, supporting and encouraging, listening when things become overwhelming, laughing with the team – and sometimes at them – and being there through the triumphs, frustrations, tears and inevitable rescue drama.
Then there’s Dr T (Dr Tracy Dicks), the Queen whom everyone bows down to.
Her commitment to sterilisation is nothing short of phenomenal. She brings together compassion and practicality, vast knowledge, and an extraordinary instinct for recognising when something isn’t quite right with a cat.
But FCP isn’t about one or two people.
It’s about every volunteer who’s ever lifted a trap or a carrier, driven across Cape Town, sat quietly waiting for a frightened cat to enter a cage, cleaned carriers, bottle-fed a tiny orphan, fed feral colonies, fostered a kitten or opened their home to a cat waiting for its forever family.
These are volunteers with full-time jobs and busy lives.
They trap in the evenings.
They spend weekends setting traps.
They drive across the city at all hours.
They feed colonies in sunshine, wind and rain.
They return cats to their territories or homes after surgery.
They mourn the ones who don’t come home.
They celebrate the ones who do.
And they keep going.
Thursday nights that change lives
One of the cornerstones of FCP’s work is its successful Thursday sterilisation clinic.
It may look deceptively simple from the outside: cats arrive, surgery takes place, and they go home.
But every cat represents hours of work before and after that Thursday.
Someone has identified a colony.
Someone has built trust with a caregiver.
Someone has arranged the traps.
Someone has planned transport.
Someone has spent an evening waiting for the right cat to enter.
Someone has worried about whether the weather will cooperate.
Someone has driven that cat to the clinic.
And after surgery, someone makes sure that cat is safely returned to the place it calls home.
TNR – Trap, Neuter, Return – isn’t simply about preventing unwanted litters. It’s about breaking the cycle of endless breeding while allowing feral cats to remain where they’re familiar and where they belong.
But there’s another essential part of every successful sterilisation: the people who make it financially possible.
FCP is powered by volunteers, but the work can’t happen without sponsors and donations.
Every sterilisation, every rescue, every kitten bottle-fed and every cat returned safely to its territory comes at a cost. The generosity of sponsors and donors transforms good intentions into tangible action – and ultimately into lives saved.
A huge and heartfelt thank you goes to the National Sterilisation Project, whose sponsorship of Feral Cat Project sterilisations has helped make this vital work possible, and to Seconds for Paws, for their invaluable support.
Without organisations and individuals willing to put their hands up and contribute, the Feral Queens simply couldn’t do what they do.
Every donation becomes a trap set.
Every sponsorship becomes a sterilisation.
Every sterilisation becomes fewer unwanted kittens.
And every contribution helps create a kinder future for Cape Town’s feral and community cats.
More than 35,000 surgeries
Thirty-five thousand, one hundred and seventy-five sterilised cats.
Pause for a moment and imagine that.
Imagine 35,175 traps being set or carriers and crates prepared.
35,175 frightened cats being reassured.
35,175 surgical procedures.
35,175 recoveries.
35,175 opportunities to prevent future generations of unwanted kittens from being born into lives of hunger, disease, danger and uncertainty.
And the number continues to grow.
Because the work is never finished.
There’ll always be another colony.
Another unsterilised female.
Another litter hidden beneath a building.
Another tiny kitten needing a bottle.
Another frightened cat who needs someone patient enough to earn its trust.
The work doesn’t stop for a celebration
Perhaps the perfect illustration of what FCP is all about happened immediately after the tenth-anniversary celebrations.
While most people might have been recovering from the festivities of a Saturday night, three members of the team headed out to three different locations – and trapped 33 cats on the Sunday.
Because that’s the thing about the Feral Queens.
There’s always another cat.
The celebration was deserved. Absolutely.
But the following day, the traps still needed to be set.
A legacy measured in lives
Ten years of Feral Cat Project Cape Town isn’t really about ten years.
It’s about thousands upon thousands of individual lives.
It’s about cats and what their humans did for them.
The someone who spent a cold evening sitting beside a trap.
The volunteer that drove across the city simply because someone reported an injured colony member.
The someone that fought for them.
The Queens know.
They know every trap, every colony, every difficult rescue and every tiny victory.
They know that sometimes the work is heart-breaking.
They know there are days when the numbers seem endless.
And they know that there are moments when one purring cat, one healthy colony, one rescued kitten or one successful sterilisation makes every long night worthwhile.
The Feral Cat Project Cape Town story is ultimately a story about compassion in action.
It’s about ordinary people doing extraordinary things – not because they’re paid to (it mostly comes at personal expense and sacrifice), but because they believe these cats matter.
Thirty-five thousand, one hundred and seventy-five cats later, the Feral Queens are still trapping.
Still sterilising.
Still feeding.
Still rescuing.
Still caring.
And still showing up.
Because once you’re a Feral Queen, apparently, you’re in for life.
And honestly?
Would they have it any other way?
Every Paw Deserves a Tomorrow
Perhaps there’s no better way to capture what Feral Cat Project Cape Town is all about than in the words of “Every Paw Deserves Tomorrow”, a beautiful song written by the husband of one of the Feral Queens.
It speaks to the heart of the work – the belief that every cat, no matter how frightened, forgotten or overlooked, deserves a chance at a better tomorrow.
Because behind every trap, every sterilisation, every late-night rescue and every tiny kitten saved is the same simple message:
Every paw matters. Every life matters. Every paw deserves a tomorrow.
And now, that message will be shared beyond the Feral Queens and the cats they care for.
“Every Paw Deserves Tomorrow” was released on YouTube and Spotify on 21st September 2026.
A song born from the love, dedication and sometimes heartbreak of rescue – and a fitting soundtrack to ten extraordinary years of Feral Cat Project Cape Town.
Every Paw Deserves Tomorrow – A Song for the Feral Cat Project and Feral Cats Everywhere
“Somewhere behind the houses,
Beneath the cars and stars,
There’s a pair of eyes watching –
A little life surviving
With a heart that still deserves tomorrow.
Back in 2012, a door was opened,
For the forgotten and the wild.
Every frightened pair of eyes
Deserved a chance, deserved a life.
We thank Mandy and Tears for giving hope,
For helping start the dream.
By twenty-sixteen, Feral Cat Project
Stood stronger than it seemed.
One cat became a hundred,
One need became a call.
And people started standing up
For those who couldn’t speak at all.
Before you set a trap,
You need a feeding place.
A bowl beneath the morning sun,
A little kindness, space and grace.
A quiet promise whispered low:
‘We’re not giving up on you.’
Every paw deserves tomorrow,
Every heart deserves a chance.
Every frightened little shadow
Deserves somewhere safe to stand.
We trap, we heal, we bring them home –
We break the endless chain.
Neuter, return, protect their lives,
And do it all again.
Sixty, seventy, eighty lives
Can change in just one day.
When people choose to care enough
To make a better way.
Every paw deserves tomorrow,
Every life is worth the fight.
For the ones who have no voice,
We will be their voice tonight.
Across Cape Town, colonies
Live beneath the open sky.
Behind the walls and next to roads,
Forgotten survivors hide.
Some have never known a home,
Some never trusted human hands.
But there’s a bowl beside the colony,
And someone understands.
They watch for sickness, hunger,
For the ones too weak and thin.
Because sterilising one cat
Means nothing if they starve within.
So food becomes a promise:
‘You don’t have to fight alone.’
Every Thursday morning,
While Cape Town starts to wake,
Dr Tracy Dicks and her team stand ready
For the difference they can make.
Nurses, assistants, trappers,
Volunteers side by side –
Working for the frightened ones
with nowhere else to hide.
Every paw deserves tomorrow,
Every heart deserves a chance.
Every frightened little shadow
Deserves somewhere safe to stand.
We trap, we heal, we bring them home –
We break the endless chain.
Neuter, return, protect their lives,
And do it all again.
One mother with her kittens,
One litter born too soon.
Without a helping hand,
The cycle starts again.
So education becomes a light:
‘Please sterilise before it’s too late.’
One simple choice today
Can change tomorrow’s fate.
And when a carer can’t afford
Private veterinary care –
A needs-based helping hand is there,
Because compassion should be shared.
No one should stand alone
When they’re trying to save a life.
Sometimes a frightened mother
Comes carrying tiny lives.
Someone opens up a room,
Someone says, ‘We’ll take them tonight.’
A frightened kitten learns a gentle touch,
Discovers sunlight through a window.
Learns that hands can bring compassion,
And finds a family waiting somewhere.
One bowl.
One trap.
One operation.
One safe return.
One foster home.
One second chance.
One life...
That’s enough reason.
Every paw deserves tomorrow,
Every heart deserves a chance.
Every frightened little shadow
Deserves somewhere safe to stand.
For every cat beneath the moon –
For every colony –
For every frightened mother –
For every kitten yet to see –
We’ll feed them when they’re hungry,
Help them when they’re teaching the world why sterilising
Can change a future still.
Every paw deserves tomorrow –
Every life is worth the fight.
When the world looks somewhere else,
We’ll stay right by their side.
From twenty-sixteen
To every Thursday still to come...
From one feeding bowl
To colonies across Cape Town...
From a frightened mother
To a kitten finding home...
From one donation
To another life saved –
The work continues.
They may be feral.
They may be frightened.
But they still feel hunger.
They still feel pain.
They still deserve kindness.
For another ten years...
Thank you, Brenda, our Queen B.
You made it possible for FCP.
Every paw...
Every heart...
Every life...
Deserves tomorrow.”
For more information, contact Brenda on 082 492 2296, email brenda@feralcatproject.org.za or follow on Facebook.
