DOZENS of cats urgently need homes as animal organisations find their accommodation inundated with kittens born this year.

Cat accommodation at the Society for the Protection of Animals (SPCA) shelter in Paget has been packed to capacity in recent weeks and the Bermuda Feline Assistance Bureau (BFAB) is working flat out to trap kittens born in the wild to prepare them for domestication.

SPCA animal shelter manager Theresa Ince urged cat owners whose pets had not been neutered or spayed to get it done.

And Ms Ince said that in August alone, the SPCA shelter had taken in 51 cats and had managed to adopt out 33 of them.

"We have had lots of cats coming in all summer," Ms Ince said. "We traditionally have a rush of kittens in spring, but it seems to be getting later in the year.

"Some are born in the wild and are brought to us by BFAB. Sometimes people find kittens at the bottom of their garden and occasionally we get the mother with the kittens, which is great because she can look after them better than we ever could.

"But many are the result of owners not getting their cats neutered."

Over the past 11 years, BFAB has managed to drastically reduce the island's feral cat population through a programme of trapping and neutering. Cats are then returned to the wild to live out their natural lives while some kittens can be domesticated.

BFAB estimates that in the early 1990s, there were anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 cats living wild in Bermuda ? now it puts the figure at around 1,000.

BFAB president Lyn Vaughan said feral kittens born in the wild were not so numerous as in previous years but the organisation still had a problem accommodating the glut of new arrivals.

"When the SPCA shelter is full, we have to try and find alternatives," she said. "We have no base of our own, so we rely on the vets, who have always been very good, and on volunteers."

Ms Vaughan, who was looking after 16 kittens at her own home, said there was a need for people to "foster" the young animals, getting them used to living with humans.

l Anyone interested in "fostering", or in giving a cat a home should call the SPCA on 236-7333 or the BFAB voicemail number, 291-1737.

l Around ten pet carriers belonging to BFAB have gone missing in recent months. Ms Vaughan believed most of the losses were down to people adopting cats from the vet's, borrowing carriers and not bringing them back. Anyone wishing to return a carrier or offer one to BFAB should call 291-1737.