00:00Saturday morning and the cat catchers are on the hunt.
00:07Luring strays with food, some are easy to trap, others not so much.
00:14I don't own any cats.
00:18People just come here and dump tiny kittens and I take care of them and feed them.
00:22There are now 15 of them.
00:25Jakarta's government estimates there are 860,000 cats in the central part of the city,
00:30about one for every 10 people.
00:33But add in the surrounding districts in this metropolis
00:36and you're looking at well over a million and a half cats.
00:40It's all over in Indonesia.
00:42It's not only a problem in Jakarta but it's also a problem in every big city in Indonesia.
00:50Vivi Sebayang runs an organisation that sterilises stray cats.
00:55She works with vets who share her concerns about overpopulation
01:00and perform operations in their spare time.
01:03This sort of spaying surgery exists here in a bit of a grey zone.
01:08It's not that it's illegal, it's just that it's a bit controversial.
01:12Vivi's organisation provides this service at a much cheaper rate than vet clinics.
01:18Some veterinarians accuse her team of undercutting their profits
01:22and say the operations aren't up to standard.
01:25It's a claim she disputes.
01:27It's become a grey area, that's why it feels like undercover
01:33but for me it's the best way to solve the problem.
01:40Government authorities sometimes also hold cat spaying events
01:45but solving Jakarta's cat problem is a slow crawl, one operation at a time.
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