Since 2010, the 140 local governments and 11 regional councils in WA have been able to create their own cat laws. Just 19 have decided to implement them.
Why would only 19 out of more than 150 councils choose to have these kinds of laws if they’re supposedly so great?
Because the adminstration of these laws and the ongoing enforcement of them is very, very expensive. And since these laws are so expensive – pulling hundreds of thousands of dollars from other community initiatives and spending it instead on trapping animals – they also tend to be rather unpopular with the community. Especially when the results of these trapping programs are consistently poor;
Step 1. Trap the cats (hugely labour intensive)
Step 2. Face the wrath of the cat-loving community (fears about their own cat’s safety, fears of vigilantism)
Step 3. Kill the cats (as they are nearly always untameable adults)
Step 4. Face the wrath of the animal loving public (trapping programs guarantee your council pound has continuously high kill rates)
Step 5. Have cats return to the same areas and be forced to kill them again (the ‘vacuum effect’)
Step 6. {repeat} (forever)
It is no wonder councils have shied away from passing laws that would have required them to expand their cat management programs – they could see that no good for them, would come of it.
The City of Joondalup estimates that it will cost the city $393,200 each year to administer the legislation. It expected to raise $274,450 from registrations, pound fees and fines, leaving council $100,000 out of pocket annually.
The City of Stirling felt it would also be out of pocket, with Stirling community safety manager Laurie Crouch saying;
“It would be particularly draining on current resource levels to police… it is likely that the city will need additional facilities and resources to help manage the proposed legislation – this is yet to be costed but could be hefty.”
The Shire of Murray (Pinjarra) is concerned about cost – The Shire of Northam is expecting to have to hire new staff to cope with the workload. In fact the Decision Paper for these laws puts the estimates of out-of-pocket costs per council at between $100,000 and $150,000 per year.
150 WA councils x $100,000 each year = $15 million dollars that has to be taken from other Council programs and services.
Remember this $15million isn’t the actual cost of enforcement, but just the out-of-pocket cost to councils. The actual cost per year of these new laws – new administration staff, new systems, new animal control officers and pound resourcing for each council – is several times more PER YEAR. These costs also don’t include upfront expenses; also in the Decision Paper is estimates of up to $500,000 for each new pound and $70,000 for staff training.
Soooo…. what’s in it for the councils? Community criticism, having to kill thousands of untame cats and all at huge cost to the tax payer.
There are two organisations who were hugely supportive of the new laws; the Cat Haven and the RSPCA WA.
The State Government today announced $3.2 million dollars worth of funding for the implementation of the new cat laws…. (it will help) animal welfare organisations like Cat Haven put the law into practice.
Councils who don’t want to have to build a shelter, train rangers and do all of this new animal management in-house (which, given the incredible low rate of uptake of voluntary laws is most of them), can simply outsource their cat management to one of these charities. In short, all these millions and millions and millions of dollars per year in administration, enforcement and impoundment, is now up for grabs to whomever can produce the most attractive proposal to council.
From the the Decision Paper;
The introduction of legislation could result in an initial increase in the number of cats that are seized, surrendered or dumped and require short term homing and euthanasing. There will be costs associated with these activities.
In the longer term, the number of cats received by these organisations is expected to fall as will the costs associated with capture, impounding, rehoming and euthanasing. However, this has not been the case in the Australian Capital Territory which introduced compulsory sterilisation in 2001.
There is no information on the number of cats likely to be dumped following the introduction of such legislation; hence no further quantification has been undertaken.
…
There may also be an opportunity for cat welfare organisations to be contracted by local governments to undertake necessary cat management activities including impounding, which will provide revenue for them to continue their activities.
There it is folks – the real reason why these two major cat welfare groups have continued to push for this legislation despite the state having the second lowest cat kill rate in the country, with no evidence that these kinds of laws have ever reduced shelter killing, and in the face of overwhelming evidence that these laws will drive up animal control sweeps, cat intakes and kill rates… they can be paid more, if more cats are brought in.
What’s more, they can blame YOU – the irresponsible public – for any extra need for services. If they’re swamped it’s your fault. If they’re killing the majority of intakes as unrehomable, it’s your fault. If they’re expanding their operations, picking up more and more animals, it’s your fault. If there is no end to the killing in sight, it’s your fault.
They’re just ‘doing the irresponsible public’s dirty work’.
Cats in Victoria are being killed at a rate of upwards of 30,000 per year. Cats in the ACT are being impounded at a higher rate than ten years ago.
What we’ve seen from the passing of cat laws in other states, is that there is big bucks in keeping your privately run shelter chock-o-block full of animals. Cat laws have failed in their aims to make cats safer, but continue to make animal welfare charities rich.
How quickly we’d see a policy change of the RSPCA WA (who in their submission to the laws advocated “promote ‘no feeding’ of semi owned. Compulsory sterilisation. Compulsory MC. Dawn to dusk confinement”) and the Cat Haven whose policies include killing on arrival treatable cats… should we start paying pounds and shelters for what matters – live release rates.
If the multi-million dollar industry that is now being created around cat impoundment in WA were entirely results driven – if tenders were paid on the numbers of cats saved, not the numbers impounded – we would see an enormous backflip from these groups. No longer would they support programs which see killing en-mass, but instead they would be force into finding and fighting for humane solutions for these cats.
If these groups are genuine about cat welfare, they should consider every healthy, treatable cat killed a complete and abject failure. They should not want to be paid per dead cat.
Step up. Show your genuine about your commitment to cats and declare you will be seeking a tender structure which focuses on saving lives.
Every cat who is saved equals payment from council for services – every cat who dies at your hand is counted as a loss and you see no income at all.
Declare that if kill rates go UP from where they are now, you know that know these new laws caused it, and no animal welfare group in the world should want to profit from programs which drives up killing.
And if in five years, these cat laws fail to see a reduction in impoundments, that you will look to have them repealed as a failure. Continuing to grow and expand animal welfare charities on the back of failed laws is simply unethical.
