Poor takings at SPCA tag days last week were blamed on rain that organisers said kept animal lovers off the streets and their hands firmly in their pockets.

SPCA president Mrs. Penny Harvey admitted the donations were still being counted but money raised from this year's tag day -- normally a major fund raising event to cover operational costs -- was so far significantly down from previous years.

She said the weather was "a big factor'' as volunteers emptied their collection cans of water at regular intervals.

But others claim the dip in donations was no coincidence.

Cat-lover Mrs. Belle Hunt claims the SPCA has fallen in the esteem of many cat lovers who say the shelter is turning away stray felines.

"People are saying you don't do anything to help me and my cats so why should I help you?'' she said. "So many people are annoyed with the SPCA.'' The SPCA, she charges, is no longer fulfilling its role as a shelter for homeless animals.

Instead, the rejected cats are then dumped in other parts of the Island away from their neighbourhoods.

As a result, the ever-growing feral cat population feds on wildlife and from trash cans to survive.

She estimated that since the SPCA abandoned its policy of performing euthanasia on unwanted animals, there were now up to 10,000 feral cats roaming the Island.

Fellow cat-lover Mrs. Betty Woolridge said she took some stray cats she had been feeding to the SPCA but was told the shelter would not take them.

"They told me I had been encouraging them,'' she said. "I just wanted to know what I should do with them.'' As a result she ended up caring for the ten strays because she could not bear to see them starve.

"People have really backed off from it (the SPCA),'' she said. "The attitude is, why should we help them if they're not helping us? "They are not doing what they should be doing. They take dogs -- why can't they take cats?'' Another woman, who wished to remain anonymous, claimed she would not make a donation to the SPCA even though she loves animals.

She said became desperate when five stray cats had 21 kittens on her property.

The SPCA took two cats, "fixed'' the others and brought them back.

"I didn't want 24 cats in my yard. I ended up feeding them because I felt sorry for them.

"But the SPCA are not doing their job. I just don't understand what they stand for. I thought that if there was a need they would take care of it,'' she said.

But Mrs. Harvey yesterday denied the SPCA ever turns away an animal. Instead the person who brings in the cat is advised to take it to a veterinarian. If the person cannot afford to -- the shelter does so for them.

"We have no policy of rejecting cats,'' she said.

But she admitted that a shortage of facilities during recent renovations placed an added burden on the shelter that does not have the facilities to separate wild cats, infected with the highly contagious feline leukemia, from healthy animals.

"We do not have the facilities for looking after wild cats,'' she said.

"We're an adoption centre. It's not that we won't take feral cats. It's that they might have feline leukemia, and we therefore we cannot mix them with healthy cats. We keep any animal there as we have space.'' Mrs. Harvey added the SPCA works closely with the Bermuda Feline Assistance Bureau which has pledged to neuter feral cats referred to the SPCA and release them back into "cat colonies'' where they are fed on a regular basis.

In return, the shelter provides BFAB with a meeting place free of charge and meets with the bureau regularly.

Animal inspector Mr. Louis Ray said the shelter takes all cats and refers the wild ones to BFAB.

"It is not our job to spay and neuter wild cats,'' he said. "BFAB deals with all the wild cats.'' The dip in donations, he added, was "definitely not to do with that.''