A DONATION of €32,000 has been made by a company headquartered in Cork, to a charity tackling the ‘escalating kitten crisis’ in Ireland.

Maxi Zoo, which is headquartered in Ballincollig County Cork, has donated over €32,000 to the Cat and Dog Protection Association of Ireland through its ‘Friendship Connects’ campaign.

The monies raised will allow the charity to respond to more calls for help from people who cannot afford necessary veterinary care for cats and dogs in need.

The CDPA is a registered animal charity dedicated to reducing the suffering of cats and dogs in Ireland through rescue, fostering, neutering, community outreach and welfare programmes. In recent months, it has reported an alarming increase in the number of animals, cats in particular, in need of rehoming.

Carmel Rooney, Director of the CDPA says the money raised will be put to good use. “The need for our services is huge and growing all the time. CDPA is the only Dublin-based rescue carrying out a large-scale trap-neuter-return (TNR) programme – the only humane way to reduce the number of kittens born, suffering and dying outside. A few years ago we were spaying or neutering six cats a week, now that’s six cats a day. We also respond to calls about dogs, and we really want to help as many animals as we can.”

CDPA believes that if every animal owner spayed and neutered their pets, the amount of unwanted cats and dogs would be dramatically reduced, therefore CDPA adopts out all their animals spayed/neutered. The charity also microchips, vaccinates and has all animals wormed before they are adopted.

Maxi Zoo ran a ‘Friendship Connects’ campaign that saw the sale of multi-purpose Pet Pendants both online and across the chain’s 29 Irish stores between October 1 and December 31. All profits from the sale of the pendants were donated to the CDPA.

Anthony Cremin, marketing manager at Maxi Zoo Ireland, said: “We were delighted with the generosity of our customers, who got fully behind the Friendship Connects campaign.”