The recently introduced policy of castrating stray cats can be detrimental especially to farmers. Rats eat all types of fruit that farmers grow, including oranges and prickly pears. During the hot summer months they will eat away at tree barks, especially the carob tree, causing disease and erosion.

If we castrate cats in the wild, the rodents will increase incredibly in numbers considering that they can give birth to litters of eight with every pregnancy.

I know for a fact that even in cases where they undertook the castration exercise at the workplace, this has caused the reappearance of rats after they had been absent for many years.

The programme should be made available only for those who would like to have their domestic pets undergo the treatment.

Let us not create a terrible imbalance in nature.