Mildura’s ‘ferals’ weren’t feral

Last month Mildura Council was in hot water with their public for shooting six cats shortly after they were dropped at the pound, when a vet was available to offer the cats a medical euthanasia. Outraged cat lovers called for the council worker to be sacked, but the worker was defended by council management who said the cats “were feral and unable to be controlled“.

While a council who refuses to look at options other than euthanasia for feral cats is certainly nothing new, the same whistleblower who witnessed the shootings has now revealed more details about the cats involved. Namely, that they weren’t only not feral, but that he’d previously handled them, moving them into the cages they would be in when they were shot.

Cats ‘weren’t feral’

A Mildura Animal Shelter worker, who last month blew the whistle on cat shootings at the pound, yesterday claimed more than six animals had been shot.

The man, who was working at the shelter under Centrelink’s Work for the Dole scheme and witnessed the shootings, contacted Sunraysia Daily yesterday after council refused to respond to his allegations.

Animal lovers across the nation and abroad were appalled to hear accounts of cats being shot last month.

It prompted calls for Mayor Glenn Milne to step down and for the council worker who shot the animals to be fired.

Council later admitted to shooting six “feral” cats, despite having a contract with a Mildura veterinarian to euthanise animals.

At that time, the shooting was dubbed cruel and unnecessary by RSPCA president Dr Hugh Wirth who said a formal investigation would be launched.

The witness said he was keen to set the record straight on the shootings, including “false” claims that the impounded cats were unmanageable and wild.

“I just really wanted people to know they weren’t feral and that there wasn’t only six of them,” he said.

“I am the one who put them in the cages.” ref

The sheer level of attention and backlash this has caused Mildura Council shows just how out of step and out of touch they are with their community. While animal lovers are desperate and pleading for change, the leadership of Mildura are defending and protecting each other. But who is protecting the pets from them?

The community will no longer put up with lazy animal departments, entrenched in a culture of killing which is neither merciful, nor ethical. We will no longer accept cats being killed arbitrarily, and as they were in this case, in an unnecessarily brutal manner. This council is to be condemned not only for a lack of compassion, but a deliberate attempt to hide from public scrutiny the fact that these animals were killed needlessly.

Animal management departments who don’t value life are being outed by their communities. We will no longer tolerate the systematic killing of pets.




More on the Mildura cat shootings here