A total of 18 cats are left from the once 80-strong colony at the San Gorg Preca College in Blata l-Bajda, volunteer Rita Buhagiar told The Malta Independent. Following what seemed like a mass poisoning to cull the colony earlier this month, the effects are still slowly taking their toll as the last remaining cats are either dying or in a precarious state of health. 

Mrs Buhagiar told this newsroom that Animal Welfare have six left, although one of them is very weak; she personally has two left in her personal care, one of them pregnant. Regarding the 40 kittens there were initially, there is only one left and it isn’t in particularly good health.

There are another nine cats left in the grounds, but volunteers are not sure if they were there initially or they migrated down from the other side of the school grounds once the large colony dissipated.

The office of the Commissioner for Animal Welfare confirmed to TMI earlier this week that the investigation is currently ongoing. However we have no information as to whether there are any leads in terms of who the culprit is. Mrs Buhagiar told us that she has also been left in the dark.