Volunteers struggle to feed soaring cat population after state cutbacks

Legend has it that a Roman empress first brought cats to Cyprus to do battle with poisonous snakes, but centuries later it's the island's financial crisis that has sparked a population boom.

Some 1,700 years after Empress Helena shipped the whiskered hunters over to the Mediterranean country, animal lovers are battling to care for a soaring stray cat population after austerity measures caused cuts to a state sterilization program.

An unsterilized female cat can have up to eight kittens a year, which has left volunteers, some of whom are struggling financially themselves, grappling to provide food to an increasing number of meowing mouths.