Daniel Leung got into TNR the way many of us do. He worked on a farm in college, ignored his manager’s warning never to feed the stray cats, and soon had dozens of them. A local TNR group came in to help, Daniel started volunteering with them, and he kept doing the work, first in Maryland and later with a large colony at a New Jersey hotel while he was traveling as a respiratory therapist during COVID. Then a trip to Penang, Malaysia, changed everything. On an island that may be home to 70,000 to 100,000 stray cats, he saw cats at every market stall and on every street.

After several years volunteering with local groups, Daniel felt the system was stuck, so he started something new. Cats of Penang began as a small grassroots effort and has grown into Catsoterra, which is built around the problems local caretakers kept running into: no government support, high costs and prices nobody would disclose. Daniel negotiated fixed rates with partner clinics and pre-funded the surgeries. He also built an online dashboard where volunteers book appointments, track outcomes and map where the cats come from. Volunteers pay an annual membership of 60 ringgit and can bring in as many cats as they need all year. So far, nearly 900 cats have been sterilized for about US$14,000.

Stacy and Daniel talk about what scale really requires. That includes the veterinary shortage in Malaysia, the cultural habit of letting owned cats roam, and why a 10-year plan matters when you’re trying to move a whole island’s numbers. They also get into apathy, business partnerships and Stacy’s vision of a “cat church” in every town where neighbors help one another care for community cats. Daniel’s message to the field is to get out of the old models and let the data make the case.

• How a college job on a farm led Daniel to TNR
• Why returning cats is a service to the neighbors who care about them
• How Catsoterra brought costs down by negotiating fixed clinic rates and pre-funding surgeries
• The booking dashboard and geo-mapping that turn TNR into data governments can use
• An annual membership model where every ringgit goes straight to the clinic
• Malaysia’s veterinary shortage and why TNR at scale is “a numbers game”
• Owned cats, indoor/outdoor culture and the vacuum effect
• Stacy’s “cat church” idea: neighbors pooling resources for community cats
• Working with businesses, from a cat food sponsor to Stacy’s early days with the Chamber of Commerce

Resources & Links

• Catsoterra
• Cats of Penang on Instagram
• Windsor Animal Hospital Penang (Catsoterra’s clinic partner)