January 22, 2009Comments are closed.mandatory desexing
After concerns by the RSPCA that compulsory registration would see 70% of cats killed in Alice Springs, it seems today that even those driving the new legislation admit that it’s not actually able to get people to be more responsible.
Mammoth fail!
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Just two dozen cats have been registered and tagged under the Alice Springs Town Council’s new legislation to keep track of the town’s moggies.
Outspoken environmentalist Mal Crowley said the pricey $133 fee would make little difference to negligent cat owners and only people who already took care of their cats would pay.
He said: “People who don’t look after their cat aren’t going to get it registered, they can just go and get another from the pound.”
Registration for a cat costs $133, which covers microchipping.
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$133! No wonder people have effectively told them to go swivel. A good animal management system should be affordable, make easy for people to find lost pets and support the community in being good owners. Not so expensive that it’s completely out of the reach of most (especially when added to the cost of desexing which is a requirement for this registration) and sees the community actually do less than they did before.
Stay tuned for many, many more breeding cats as owners, fearing fines, fail to take any ownership at all. Rest assured they’ll still feed their cat, they just won’t let it inside or take it to the vet or anything…
And lets hope rangers have got nothing better to do than trap cats as their new laws effectively make roaming an offence. And since dodging the new fines means people don’t put any form of identification on their pets, or come to collect them, the euthanasia techs will be busy, busy busy…
But that’s ok, because this wasn’t ever really about good law or protecting pets and owners, but giving those in power more power to kill stray animals.
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Mr Crowley said although flawed, he was glad the legislation was in place.
He said: “Something definitely needed to be done about all the cats that are in town.
“The problem with cats is that they can take care of themselves — which means hunting the local wildlife.
“I think it’s good making the owners accountable, but it’s flawed.
“People think I’ve got a problem with cats. That’s not true.
“I’ve got a problem with people who don’t look after their cats and let them wander.”
Who is Mal Crowley? I hear you ask. Well, you can find out more on him here. He has no problems with cats at all. None.
Owners of cats that are not registered face large fines if their cat is trapped.
Eleven cats have been trapped and taken out to the pound since the legislation came into force.
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Compulsory registration = A bad idea. Terrible. Awful.
Registering anything at all whether it is a car or a cat does not magically make people more responsible. Cars have significant impact on wildlife. Registering hasn’t made drivers more responsible in their cars and the slaughter of animals two legged and four continues on the roads.
Environmentalist – ha! -People bestow these labels upon themselves as though they somehow or other are removed from the responsibility of the altered Australian landscape caused by urbanisation, industrialisation, pollution of waterways, removal of waterways etc etc.
It is well past the time that this brainless persecution of cats was stopped.
Cats were here before whites arrived and are now part of the environment.
Nevertheless, human beings are very adept at creating scapegoats in an attempt to exonerate themselves from lives woes. A very good example were the Nazis. Not much difference with the cat situation.
Some people agonize for hours/days if they see a cat catch a bird and yet the same people squash a bird on the road and it’s forgotten immediately.Hypocrites!
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