The Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary is a cat

shelter Shelter is a small building giving temporary protection from bad weather or danger. Shelter may also refer to: Places * Port Shelter, Hong Kong * Shelter Bay (disambiguation), various locations * Shelter Cove (disambiguation), various locatio ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, Italy, that makes use of the ancient ruins of

Largo di Torre Argentina Largo di Torre Argentina is a square in Rome, Italy, with four Roman Republican temples and the remains of Pompey's Theatre. It is in the ancient Campus Martius. The name of the square comes from the ''Torre Argentina'', which takes its name fr ...

by providing a home within them for around 150 cats. After the excavation of the temple ruins in 1929,

feral cats A feral cat or a stray cat is an unowned domestic cat (''Felis catus'') that lives outdoors and avoids human contact: it does not allow itself to be handled or touched, and usually remains hidden from humans. Feral cats may breed over dozens ...

were drawn to the area, sheltered by

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

pillars and fed by locals. In the 1950s, an actor named Antonio Crast found the old warehouse where archeologists of the 1920s stored their tools. It was there that he began feeding the feral cats. The keys to the warehouse were passed down until they landed in the hands of the founders of the sanctuary—one of them being Lia Dequel. Since then the shelter has grown, with volunteers coming every day of the week to feed, care for, and vaccinate the cats. The shelter's main goal is sterilizing the cats. They spay and neuter cats in order to control the feral cat population. Not only do they spay and neuter cats in their own colony, but they also focus efforts on spaying and neutering and vaccinating cats of other colonies. They have, in the last decade, managed to reach out to 27,000 colonies of cats. They also have many cats up for adoption. They hope to find loving homes for many of the felines in the sanctuary. On average, the sanctuary finds loving homes for 125 cats a year. In their headquarters the shelter provides a home for disabled and elderly cats, who are less likely to be adopted. The shelter is open to visitors every day. People can come in to meet the cats, and to browse souvenirs made by the volunteers at the shelter. All proceeds go towards the cats there, and donations, like these, allow the shelter to stay in operation. In 2012, the shelter faced closure when national archaeological officials demanded that the cat sanctuary be evicted from the ruins. Over 30,000 signatures were collected for petitions in favor of preserving the cat sanctuary and keeping it running. Despite a compromise, the sanctuary still lives with the threat of an eviction—relying on donations more than ever in order to keep their home at Torre Argentina. In 2019, the podcast '' This is Love'' visited Torre Argentina and spoke with co-founder Silvia Viviani for their episode, "Silvia and the Cats."

References

External links

Colonia Felina Di Torre Website
{{Commonscat, Cats of Largo di Torre Argentina Organizations with year of establishment missing Animal welfare organisations based in Italy Organisations based in Rome Animal shelters Domestic cat welfare organizations