Is your cat worth $500, or would another cat do?
That’s the dilemma to be faced by cat owners in the Northern Territory, held to randsom by local councils thanks to new laws that, according to RSPCA Central Australia manager Jill Hall, are set to see up to 70% of domestic cats killed.
Under the tough new registration changes passed by Alice Springs Town Council earlier this month, cat owners will have to pay $330 in penalties if their cat is found unregistered.
And to get their loved pet back from the RSPCA it will cost $240.
So it is $570 if an owner wants their unregistered cat back.
That is about five times as much as it costs to buy a new cat.
Just as anyone who’s taken the time to think this through all the way to the end would predict, each new and more draconian law pushed forward by cat ‘supporter’ groups sees the most disadvantaged pet owners targeted and shelter kill rates rise.
What programs should a cat welfare group push for? Ones that protect cats. Why instead are they pushing for compulsory cat registration? Because there’s money in registering cats. But rest assured, according to the Darwin local council, they’ll be taking no prisoners.
An unregistered cat caught in council traps in public places will be destroyed.
So this ‘great’ new law to protect cats is nothing more than a licence to kill.
In other news, cat welfare groups in WA have a problem; they can’t rehome desexed kittens for a couple of hundred dollars, because free to good homes kitties are everywhere. There was a lovely colour article about it in the West Australian today;
Healthy, playful and all dead by yesterday afternoon
The Cat Haven has to put down almost 70 per cent of the 10,000 cats dumped on its doorstep every year.
Is the answer according to the biggest cat welfare group in WA, the Cat Haven, more support for owners and the cats they care for to keep cats in their homes? Nope;
In an attempt to decrease the number of unwanted and feral cats, Premier Colin Barnett recently backed calls for compulsory cat sterilisation.
Theorising that the same people who won’t, or can’t, pay to buy a desexed kitten are somehow going to be inspired to invest in desexing by a law which sees fines and seizures of their undesexed cat should they not…
Seriously – you couldn’t make this stuff up.
Frankly, I think after the first human suicides they’ll change their minds. There are plenty of people “out there” who are devotedly attached to their animals but not organised enough to get them registered (not because they’re bad people, but because they can’t cope with this kind of stuff).
It would make infinitely more sense to go for TNR including cats that are probably owned (on the basis of their behaviour).
The Cat Haven also need to be telling people what will be happening to these kittens/cats once handed over, all too often I have heard people surrendering cats/kittens that dont belong to them, thinking they are doing the right thing only to later find out these animals have been destroyed the same day. Telling people the cat /kittens will be rehomed isnt helping these animals. Knowing this and given the option I am sure quite a few would walk away with the cat/kittens and rehome it themselves and they would ensure they were all sterilised also, if given a cheap local opportunity todo this.
They charge $15 to check what cats come in, if you have lost a cat, which may not even turn up in their shelter. I understand they are a volunteer organisation but there is alot of dog people who regulary check pounds and lost and found ads for free in hopes of reuniting owners with their dogs.
Maybe if the Government allocated some money towards extending their enclosures so that strays were given a 3 day holding period like the dogs receive and also towards subsidised desexing program to go along with it, it would give them more of an opportunity to be claimed or find homes.
Would be nice if the West Australian Government actually started financially assisting animal welfare agencies more instead of going around in circles.
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