Pet-loving British holidaymakers may love the attractive cats they make friends with in the local tavern as they feed them on scraps from their lunch or dinner. But few realise that, come the winter when everything is closed up, those same cats face a tragic fate.

Author and travel writer Jennifer Pulling decided to try and make a difference in just one island: Sicily, and her new book ‘The Great Sicilian Cat Rescue’ charts her journey as a passionate defender of that island’s often ill-treated and abused cats.

Look behind the blue skies and sparkling seas of many Mediterranean resorts and you will discover a darker story. It is one of cultures that don’t understand animals as sentient beings, capable of feeling stress, fear, pain and hunger. Of parents who bring up their children to consider cats as vermin and to treat them accordingly.

Every year, hundreds of cats are purposely killed: by poison, starvation and other cruel methods. Kittens are tied in a sack and thrown into rubbish bins or the sea.  The root cause behind this slaughter is the uncontrolled breeding of the animals; the perceived ‘solution’ to kill them. Neutering programmes are ignored by many local authorities when this is the only way forward.

Some resorts are better than others. Gozo and Malta have a large ex pat community, which works with the SPCC to treat and neuter. The Menorcan mentality is kinder to animals. Sicily and Greece are high on the list for their appalling record of animal welfare. Muslim countries differ in their approach. Turkey appears to look fairly kindly upon animals while Tunisia’s streets are full of scrawny cats. Any lover of felines would be wise to choose their destination carefully.

For Jennifer Pulling, it was a Sicilian cat called Lizzie that changed the direction of her life and lead up to her launching Catsnip, her one woman campaign to improve the lot of cats in that holiday island.

It tells how she set about fund raising, wrote to drug companies who sent supplies, set up traps and cages around the island, organised teams of American, German and British vets to work on neutering cats in improvised surgerie, and even met the ‘gattare’, Sicily’s cat ladies who devote their lives to caring for colonies of feral cats.

Jennifer explains “My book ‘The Great Sicilian Cat Rescue’ relates the tales some of the many cats I have rescued. There is Macchia, a skin and bone old lady, scavenging for scraps from waste bins, who now presides as matriarch in a cat lover’s garden. Ginger suffered badly from ringworm, which was cured and now roams the streets fed by kindly tourists. And Katarina a little blind cat whom, after a lengthy process, arrived in London where she now lives the life of a princess.”

In carrying out the work she crossed swords with Sicilian bureaucracy and empty promises of cooperation that were never fulfilled, and even risked prosecution.

“As I ventured further afield, I discovered an unknown Sicily, victim of waste and political corruption. I came to understand the insularity of this island, caused by the domination of various invaders and the Mafia. This is my story of one woman’s mission to save the felines I love and cherish. In spite of all the battles and sometime disappointments I continue to be fascinated by the Sicily of splendid landscapes and intriguing culture”.

The Great Sicilian Cat Rescue is available from WH Smith, Waterstones, Amazon and from many independent bookshops.