Street Cats South Canterbury has recorded a significant peak in its December and January stray cat numbers compared to previous years.
The voluntary organisation has been running for almost 12 years and provides services such as trapping stray cats and kittens, taming them and adopting them out after desexing, microchipping and vaccinating them.
Street Cats programme director Karen Sole said it currently had 180 cats in its care.
"That number is probably going to climb. It’s right up there, we will probably normally peak at about 160.
"Over Christmas, we peaked at 207 and it's actually earlier this year than last year, so we don't know what the rest of the season is going to look like.
"Our incoming for December was 157 and in previous years it’s been like 74 to 90."
She said Covid as well as costs could be an aggravating factor.
"It did hold steady for a while, this year we've noticed a huge increase, that could go back to Covid when we couldn't trap and we couldn't desex anything.
"We have also taken a lot from Oamaru this year which has brought our numbers up. We've also got a lot of farms around South Canterbury which always have a lot of stray wild cats.
"If somebody's got five cats, that's $150 they've got to fork out to get them all desexed. What we do is we pay that $30 for them and get it done. The other barriers are they might not have transport, they might not have a carry cage, or just simply procrastination. So we want to try and work on those barriers."
Mrs Sole said donations to the organisation were a big help.
"We pay for our own fuel to run around the place, all the money that we raise and gets donated goes towards is vet bills, food and litter.
"Last year we spent $12,000 on food and our vet bills are around $95,000-$100,000 a year. For December alone our vet bill was $65,000.
"We all work full time and do the best we can do but we can only do so much and go as far as what money we have."
She said leaving cats desexed could lead to big problems.
"You'd have a lot of stressed people out there. We get a lot of stressed people now if they've got a stray cat that's had kittens, and leaving it would just add to that.
"If the numbers get out of control, the cats will move inland more and get into these places that are protected for wildlife.
"People do enjoy feeding that stray cat at work or whatever but it's really important for not only their mental health, but seeing that it's a healthy cat that they're looking after and not a cat that's constantly having kittens.
"It's far healthier for the cats to be desexed as well and it stops a lot of diseases that can then spread on to domestic cats."
Anyone wishing to donate to Street Cats South Canterbury can make a donation directly to its bank account.
Details can be found online or on its Facebook page.
