An exploration of human-animal interaction within South African hospitals: case studies of outdoor cats and their caretakers
| dc.contributor.author | Makeleni, Senzo | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-10-23T09:36:53Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-10-23T09:36:53Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Stray, lost and abandoned pet cats and unsocialised feral cats enter and occupy public spaces such as hospitals in search of food and shelter and establish colonies that impact the operation and health standards of hospitals. These institutions respond differently to such situations. Some focus on destroying the populations, others accept them, while some work with animal welfare organisations and volunteer cat carers to manage the cats’ populations and welfare. Feral cat colonies at hospitals occasionally attract news media attention but there has been little academic focus on the issue in the South African context. Rather than see the animals simply as a nuisance to humans, this qualitative study used the Actor-Network and structuralism theories to examine cat colonies in South African public and private hospitals from the perspective of human-outdoor cat species interaction. Hospitals that have either appointed or have self-volunteered individuals or organisations cat caretakers on the hospital premises were the focus of the study. In these settings, health and safety concerns are very important and the attitudes and interests of the various stakeholders (such as the cat caretakers, animal welfare organisations, hospital staff, management and patients and the community as a whole), need to be considered. Using purposive sampling technique, cat carers were interviewed to illuminate the challenges and solutions regarding looking after cats in a public institution setting. An open ended questionnaire was used to gather primary data for this study, providing an in-depth understanding of the subject matter while employing a narrative approach to analyse the data. The study found that few hospitals had adopted a structured approach to managing the feral cat problem and the ability to see the cats as actors to consider fairly as opposed to nuisances to be rid of was more reflected in the cat caretakers’ approach than other stakeholders. This indicates a need for education processes and increased advocacy to temper human bias and focus more on the animals’ right to welfare, which would result in benefits to all actors. | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/10566/21116 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | University of the Western Cape | |
| dc.subject | human-animal interaction | |
| dc.subject | Actor-Network Theory | |
| dc.subject | strays | |
| dc.subject | outdoor cats | |
| dc.subject | feral cats | |
| dc.title | An exploration of human-animal interaction within South African hospitals: case studies of outdoor cats and their caretakers | |
| dc.type | Thesis |