Cat Haven; help please everyone stop enforcing the cat laws now – we’re swamped

The major problem with telling everyone that they should bring all free-roaming cat into a shelter for ‘processing’ is that they might just do exactly that. And the result is not terribly difficult to imagine.

A little over a year ago, cat and welfare groups in the state of WA celebrated as their much desired ‘cat laws’ came into force. Shortly after rollout, major supporter the Cat Haven declared the laws an overwhelming success, with a 25% drop in intakes just days after implementation;

The number of strays taken in by the Cat Haven has dropped 25 per cent since the Cat Act was introduced last November.

They received 6,229 cats last year – 2,259 fewer than the year before.

But this assertion seemed to be based on a wish to be right, and fortunate timing in the release of end of year stats, rather than the reality rescue groups and shelters handling cats now faced. Cats poured into rescue at an unprecedented rate. And despite the positive spin cat law advocates hoped to put on the law rollout – that simply by working hard that shelters could cope with any increased workload – the reality is cats can breed much faster than any neighbourhood cat trappers cat collect them. The Cat Haven have this month asked people to please, for cats-sake, stop bringing cats into the shelter;

Perth’s Cat Haven is in crisis after being overcrowded with unwanted and stray felines.

The charity has more than 320 cats on site and another 550 in foster care that will soon return to the shelter.

Spokeswoman Chandra Woodley said Cat Haven was running out of options.

“We are asking people to postpone surrendering their cat as we just don’t have room.”

The ‘blame the public’ approach simply doesn’t work for cats. Mostly because cats don’t care. Not only do they continue to breed unchecked cat laws, or no cat laws, they do so in every available nook and cranny;

“Sadly at this time of year, the height of kitten season, many poor mother cats and kittens are dumped all over the Perth metro area in parks, industrial areas, laneways, et cetera and they nearly all end up at our shelter,” she said.

‘Dumped’ is such a loaded and misleading way to present the fact cats are having kittens in December. It is not because of some extrapolation of ‘public irresponsibility’ and people shoving boxed pet cat families into laneways – it’s just biology. As cat groups like the Cat Haven and RSPCA refuse to support proactive outreach desexing programs for all cats, regardless of ownership status, every year the result is a massive wave of kitten births.

If we’re going to clumsily assign ‘blame’ for the natural cycle of cat reproduction, a much more appropriate direction to point finger would be at the professionals heading the industry being paid millions of dollars annually to supposedly manage this community issue. Maybe instead of blaming ‘irresponsible owners’, we should be blaming ‘irresponsible shelters’ for refusing to implement programs which have been proven to work to stabilise and reduce cat numbers.

WA’s new cat laws were sold as the solution to our cat issues in the state. All they’ve done each day since their rollout is pack shelters full to the brim with animals, meaning ‘kitten season’ has fallen onto a system completely unable to cope. Continuing to pretend the ‘blame the cat owners’ approach was ever going to work in overwhelming evidence of the contrary is only continuing to harm cats. Choosing to continue to harm cats is unconscionable.