Our story

Traps, Tales & Tenacity

Three cat-loving ladies, a fleet of traps and a lot of tinned pilchards — here's how Cat Family Foundation really runs.

The Cat Family Foundation team with rescued cats

We're all mad here!

Cat Family Foundation (CatFam) is a registered Non-Profit Organisation that aims to assist our CatFams in the Greater Johannesburg area. We assist the colonies under our current umbrella with trapping, sterilisations, homing and vet assistance.

There are so many feral carers and moms in Johannesburg alone that it's impossible to network with everyone. We also get so inundated with Facebook requests, messages and the like, that the aim of this site is to be a one-stop place to send anyone and everyone who needs advice, assistance or a shoulder to cry on. If you have anything you think will make this site even better, give us a shout and we'll gladly research and add it.

Dedicated to all cat lovers!

You'll find useful information about kittens, feral cats, organisations that can help trap, vets that assist at reduced rates, animal trackers and behaviourists, as well as other foster carers in other areas in SA. We'd love to grow and expand this section as much as possible.

There's also a cool shop where we've met some amazing people who help us create wonderful items from recycled materials. They all get a healthy % of the proceeds to support themselves and their families. Go check it out here!

Looking to adopt a kitten? We can help! There's a dedicated adoptions page for our kittens and cats, as well as an online adoption form should you wish to be pre-approved.

For the fun-loving enthusiasts, we've added a page with some quirky pics that you can download.

We have big things planned — so please keep visiting!

The humans behind the traps

Meet the Fam

Ingrid Deacon

Ingrid Deacon

Ingrid is our fierce (ehm, slightly wiser) team leader. If it moves and she sees goonies, she's on it with a trap. Her passion is catching ferals like it's an Olympic sport — and we suspect if there were a gold medal in trapping, it would already have her name engraved on it.

She single-handedly manages Aeroton's sprawling business district, home to nearly 150 cats. But her real superpower? Knowing everything about everything (and everyone) — a mental database that rivals Google and a contact list longer than your auntie's grocery receipt.

Honestly, we don't know how she remembers it all, but we suspect it involves instinct, strong tea, and hours of doing this with heart and grit.

Alise Antrobus

Alise Antrobus

Alise does a bit of everything — trapping, fostering, admin and marketing. Her colony, opposite a private school, started with a mom and two kittens. It's now a family of seven, with a new tomcat whose manhood is on the eviction list.

She has adopted, homed, sterilised, bathed, medicated and cried over so many kitties, but doesn't know any other way to spend her life. She drives us mad with her constant “great ideas” (spreadsheets, graphics, or 17 new traps) — but we love her for it.

Getting our tax-exempt status with SARS took three years, but Alise did it — so we now proudly issue S18A certificates. She has 10 cats of her own and one Yorkie, aged 12.

Heather Tluczek

Heather Tluczek

Heather joined in January 2024 after reaching out for help with a massive kitten population under the Strijdom Park bridge. Our first rescue together involved trapping kittens with a fishing net in an overgrown bush — we MacGyvered tools and made it work, and still use that net to this day.

Heather is our kitten whisperer. Her two dedicated kitten rooms could make a 5-star hotel envious — climbers, hidey spots, plush beds, and even a skyline catio.

She braves the empty weekend streets of Strijdom Park to feed colonies and deal with the bizarre things humans do (like stealing a feeding station but leaving the chain behind).

Traps, tales & tenacity

Cat Family Foundation wouldn't be Cat Fam if our day didn't start with a flurry of WhatsApp messages, updates on kittens, logistics for the next rescue, and of course, plotting revenge on the next set of unsterilised cats that need to be trapped (with love, of course).

Over the years, we've been lucky to have incredible mentors. They've taught us to be patient, bottle feed, work smarter, show compassion, and — most importantly — how to survive in the sometimes brutal world of animal welfare.

We're always learning: about cats, diseases, treatments, colony care and everything in between, to ensure our ferals are thriving, not just surviving.

This is serious, often stressful work. But the day it stops being fun or driven by passion is the day you hang up your trapping hat. Like most rescue orgs, we've seen it all.

Boots on the Ground (and Torches in Hand)

Strijdom Park has become our second home. Many nights you'll find us cruising the streets with torches and tins of pilchards, scouting our next sterilisation candidates. Trust us — there's always another cat.

And when we're not patrolling the streets, we're answering the daily chorus of “There's a stray here!” or “Feral spotted there!” — driving all over Joburg like feline first responders, assisting mere mortals in estates and suburbs with their “problem cat children”, usually the result of someone else's unsterilised pet or a cat left behind when a family moved.

Want to join the CatFam?

Whether it's a donation, a foster room or a spare pair of hands — every bit keeps the traps moving and the kittens safe.

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