A new year has begun, and as has become a tradition, we would like to look back with you on our animal welfare work in the past year 2025.
This year was again marked by global political crises, economic uncertainty, rising costs, and other exceptional circumstances that have not left humans and animals unscathed. Once again, it became all the more clear how important team spirit, empathy, and commitment are, especially in animal welfare.
Thanks to your continued unwavering support, we were able to counter these challenges with many positive developments in 2025. Whether through donations, creative campaigns, words of encouragement in difficult moments, or appreciative feedback on our successes—your support has sustained our work and made it possible. Together, as a comparatively small association, we have once again been able to achieve a great deal for the Andros cats, which we look back on with gratitude and a little pride.
With this review of the year, we would like to express our heartfelt thanks to all of you – those who have been with us for years, as well as those who joined us in 2025.
Let us now look back on the past year together and start the new year with confidence in our commitment to our Andros cats!
NEUTERINGS
85 cats were neutered, including 66 females and 19 males.
We found neutering sponsorships for 83 of the cats neutered last year, as well as for 2 cats to be neutered by the end of 2024 and one cat with a neutering appointment in January 2026, enabling us to finance the neutering procedures. Another name sponsorship was taken on for a cat that was neutered years ago as part of its medical treatment.
We are still looking for sponsors for two of the cats that will be neutered in 2025. We are therefore grateful for any help in the future! You can find all the information here: Neutering sponsorship.
Here are the 87 sponsorships in detail:
MEDICAL TREATMENTS
In addition to neutering and providing regular food supplies, we also support our animal welfare friends on Andros with urgently needed medical treatments. Furthermore, the cats that have been sent to foster homes also require medical care, as we only bring cats to Germany that have no chance of survival on Andros—and this is almost exclusively for medical reasons.
The spectrum of conditions that the island veterinarian, our veterinarian, or other specialists in Athens and here in Germany have to treat ranges from mild cat flu or ingrown claws to abscesses and tooth or eye removals to complex and complicated operations on soft tissue or bones.
In addition to a few cats whose names we do not know or who are nameless at the feeding sites looked after by our friends, whom we naturally do not deny support, we helped these 39 of our cats:
PERMANENT SPONSORSHIPS
Permanent sponsorships have been taken on for five cats. You can find a complete overview on our animal pages under the heading Permanent sponsorships on our German homepage.
Permanent sponsorships are very valuable for our work, as they enable us to provide continuous support to our Greek animal welfare partners. You can find out exactly what a permanent sponsorship means and how you can help on our Permanent sponsorship page.
TRAVEL CATS
As in the previous year, two trips took place in 2025, giving four cats the chance to travel to Germany.
Fortunately, we had enough space available in foster homes, so we once again used flight companions, which we had had very good experiences with for the first time in 2024. This enabled us to bring another four cats to Germany.
This meant a chance at a good and safe life for each individual animal. Once again, these were cats that would have had little chance of survival on Andros as free, albeit cared for, strays:
- Giga is already quite old. His past is largely unknown. He was brought to our friend A. by a local woman who was leaving Andros. The vet recorded his year of birth as 2015. Of course, neither we nor she herself know if this is accurate. He tested positive for FIV and had cat flu. In addition, his white ears were already affected by ear cancer. Unfortunately, a follow-up test in Germany revealed that he was also FeLV-positive. In October 2025, he finally had the good fortune to find his forever home without us having to search for one through adoption ads.
- Akrisios lived at a feeding site, but in November 2024 he was admitted to the vet with pneumonia and stayed with our friend A. Since he remained weak and congested in the following months, we brought him to Germany. Unfortunately, his condition deteriorated significantly in the following period. It turned out that he was suffering from an inoperable diaphragmatic hernia, which left us with no choice but to let him go.
- Caroline was born in 2020 and was blind in both eyes. She lived with our friends H. & I. in their house. When the opportunity arose at the beginning of May to bring her to Germany, we didn’t hesitate for long, because we wanted to have the necessary eye surgery performed by our specialists, and as a blind cat, she would not have been able to live as a stray on Andros anyway. She was able to move in with her new family in August!
- Neda was less than a year old when she left. She shares Caroline’s fate, as she is also blind in both eyes and lived with our two friends. She also had eye surgery in Germany, as her eyes were underdeveloped from birth and had to be removed, and she too has already found her forever home.
- Labros wasn’t actually an “Andros cat” because he was found by one of our Greek friends as a seriously injured kitten at her daughter’s school in Athens. But of course, we took care of this little guy and gave him the best medical care possible, even though it was ultimately in vain.
- Andromache was born in the summer of 2023 and lived at the home of our Greek friends H. & I. In May 2025, she became increasingly thin and was unable to keep food down. The cause was a congenital narrowing of the esophagus, which had worsened significantly. We were able to have her treated in Athens, but since she can no longer eat dry food, it was impossible for her to return to her feeding site. We brought her to Germany to look for a forever home for her.
- Molly stayed with our Greek animal welfare friends to recover after being neutered in April 2025. However, when her condition deteriorated again, we sent her to the vet in Athens, with whom we collaborate on more complicated cases. Although the diagnosed pneumonia and lungworm infestation could be treated, she unfortunately also tested positive for FeLV. This meant that Molly could no longer live on Andros permanently.
- Koko appeared blind at a feeding site and was therefore taken away from there by our friend A. As she also tested positive for FeLV, we brought her to a foster home in Germany, where she is currently being cared for as she also has other health problems.
Here is an overview of all eight travel cats:
PLACEMENTS
IIn 2025, we found forever homes for 12 cats—the highest number since 2020! That may still sound like a relatively small number, especially since George, Brady, and Mara are not Andros cats, but were introduced by us as part of a placement assistance program. However, taking in and rehoming animals is not one of the main focuses of our animal welfare work, and we expressly reject pure “cat tourism” for rehoming purposes.
We are particularly happy that Zorba & Stella, who were already soulmates on Andros, were able to stay together! We were equally pleasantly surprised that Onni was adopted by the same family around three and a half months after Lakis‘ placement and that the two, who incidentally come from the same place on Andros, have become best friends!
You can find all of our rehomed cats on the Lucky Cats page at our German homepage.
Currently, six cats are still looking for a home, four of which are again being rehomed. Their listings are on our Placement page at our German homepage too. We kindly ask you to share or forward the listings (or adopt them yourself).
PLACEMENT HELP
In addition to our own placements, as mentioned above, we again offered placement assistance to private animal welfare activists and other associations last year, this time for seven cats. Although this is slightly less than in 2024, it nevertheless shows that we as an association are also recognized in the area of placement and are asked for support.
With our help, Mara found a loving home. Carlo, Tonja, Maxi, and Diesel are still waiting for their families. The animal welfare activists who asked us for support have now found suitable homes for Pfötchen and Anouk themselves, which of course makes us very happy.
BEYOND THE RAINBOW
Unfortunately, animal welfare does not only mean wonderful experiences, but is also repeatedly marked by farewells. Particularly painful are the moments when Andros cats leave us – such as the 26 animals we remember below.
Even though this number is roughly the same as in previous years, despite a further increase in the number of animals cared for with our support, such figures ultimately remain pure statistics – we continue to be deeply affected by each individual fate.
We find comfort in the knowledge that none of these cats passed away nameless or unnoticed. Our Greek friends on Andros and the foster homes here in Germany lovingly accompanied them on their final journey and were able to alleviate their suffering and pain or at least offer them a final resting place when they fell victim to an accident on Andros. All our „star cats“ have a special place in our hearts, and we remember them on our Behind the rainbow page at our German homepage.
FOOD DONATIONS
We have continued our close cooperation with our Greek partners without restriction. In addition to ongoing support with neutering and medical care, we were able to supply them with six deliveries of food, each weighing between 600 and almost 700 kilograms, which we sourced – as we have done for some time now – from local dealers on Andros or on the Greek mainland. In addition, we were able to provide a large delivery of 1,440 kilograms of dry food via the donation platform “feed a cat.”
ANDROS TRIPS
As already mentioned in connection with the traveling cats, two trips to Andros took place in 2025. Both Marie’s parents and our treasurer, together with his wife, traveled to “our” cat island at the end of April/beginning of May.
The aim this time was also to cultivate personal exchanges with Greek animal welfare activists, to actively help out ourselves, and to gain an up-to-date picture of the situation on the ground. You can also find the travel report here in the Andros diary: April/May 2025 – Blooming Landscapes.
ASSOCIATION PRESENTATION
This and all previous annual reviews are the result of our association’s work—always focused on our association’s goal of enabling the Andros cats to live on their island. In February 2025, our chairman Jörg had the opportunity to present our association at an elementary school. We reported on this in our Andros diary: From Andros to the neighbourhood.
We are happy to show the presentation we created for this occasion here again, and it can of course be shared to promote our association!
We would like to conclude this review once again with a heartfelt thank you to everyone who supported us and made it possible for us to achieve all that we did for our Andros cats in 2025!
To ensure that we can continue to be there for the cats both on Andros and here in Germany in the future, we would like to combine this thank you with information about the various ways in which you can help us. You can find all the relevant information under our donation options.
This post can also be shared on social media:
Du muss angemeldet sein, um einen Kommentar zu veröffentlichen.