If you’ve ever tried to engage a mandatory desexing zealot in a reasonable discussion of the population dynamics of cats in Australia, you’ll know the meaning of pointless. They are driven to show the world that everyone else is wrong, that the public is evil and the only path to salvation is the legislated removal of the reproductive organs of every owned animal.
No matter how. much. evidence. you are able to present on just where stray cats come from – they consider their methodology unquestionable; “of course it will work, you silly person,” they chant. “more desexed cats mean less kittens born and less have to be killed in shelters!“. All animal lovers must join them in their fight to target the ‘irresponsible masses’.
But ‘punishment dogmatists’ choose to ignore a truth, that those who study pets and their owners are able to measure time and time again; Australian pet owners are incredibly compliant and compassionate towards companion animals.
Last year, a report for the Victorian Bureau of Animal Welfare, by The Animal Welfare Science Centre, sampled Victorian veterinarians and their clients profiling owners, pets and ownership practices, especially in how they manage the reproductive behaviour of their pets. ‘Characteristics of pets who visit veterinarians’ (Martson, Bennett), interviewed 51 veterinarian surgeries and 588 owners and found the majority of pet owners are doing what we asked them to;
Overall, the level of desexing was high, with a greater percentage of cats (94%) being desexed than dogs (89.7%).
And that they are also remarkably considerate to those cats that they don’t own;
37.9% of the sample fed cats that they did not own (cat semi owners), indicating not only that responsible cat owners engage in this behaviour, but that they may do so at a greater level than the general population.
Despite what is commonly claimed, the small number of owned cat litters that happen ‘accidentally’ aren’t abandoned, but are considerately placed;
Very few litters were presented at the participating clinics. Most of the progeny of these owned animals were rehomed directly by their owner in some way. Very few were taken to shelters. This suggests that the progeny of veterinary clients are not contributing significantly to shelter admissions.
47.7% of cats were obtained at no cost, from the stray population, from friends, relatives and neighbours.
Cats acquired at no cost were likely to be owned for as long as those that had been acquired at considerable cost.
Meaning cat owners are not only not contributing to the ‘kitten flood’ but are actually pretty efficiently absorbing cats from the unowned population by adopting neighbourhood strays. They are helping, not hindering cat welfare in Australia.
Rather than legislation targeting owners, the study pointed towards targeted desexing programs as the key to reducing strays and ferals;
Rural and regional practices saw significantly more unowned, feral cats compared to urban practices. Lower client income levels were associated with a higher percentage of feral cats being presented at clinics which suggests that providing low cost/no cost desexing in low income areas might be effective in reducing feral cat numbers.
As most of the cats which enter shelters as strays display some evidence of having been socialised to humans, it is likely that many of them are semi-owned cats. Increasing the proportion of cat semi-owners who desex the animals they feed therefore could reduce shelter admissions.
Outreach, not criticism. Support and assistance, not fire and brimstone. It’s only when animal welfare groups stop taking a ‘moral high ground’ with cat owners and start working with them as partners will there be any hope to reduce cat problems here in Australia.
While ‘mandatory desexing’ targeting owners sounds constructive; what is suggested by this study is that, like many other previous studies, cat owners are the solution, not the problem when it comes to caring for cats. And since their compassion extends to the stray and ferals in their community, if we engage them and simply ask for their help we can start to reduce the flow of cats and kittens into shelters.
Cat owners are our allies, not our enemies.
While I agree that hostility towards cat owners is not going to help the situation, it would be interesting to see what the above studies done in Victoria and other states of Australia would show up if done in Western Australia. Not only are the people over here poorly eduacated about their animal companions but it is compounded by the lack of legislation on cat welfare and ownership responsibilities.
It is also not helpful that the welfare organisations over here with the most publicity and resources at their fingertips do very little to effectively make a difference to the cat populations in WA. They are also the ones who participate in the hostility that you speak of towards cat owners.
Smaller organistions such as ours on the other hand do try and work with the public to better the situation and not pass such harsh judgement on cat owners but at the end of the day when I have dealt with the umpteenth person who seems to have little to no regard for the welfare of their cat or the cat they have called about I too get cranky and start to take the ‘moral high ground’ because if they have no morality then someone has to.
I think WA may need to be considered very differently when it comes to the feral and domestic cat populations as even I will admit we are backward in so many ways over here and the legislation is the worst.
We will of course always do our best to work with cat owners instead of against but I’m sorry to say the issue will never be clear cut or black and white.
Natalie Mason
9 Lives Cat Rescue, Perth
Certainly, I agree WA is lacking – the programs that have shown to reduce shelter killing (outreach desexing, in-store adoption, shelters working together with the community; feral cat carers or foster), are non-existent. But that’s not ‘overpopulation’ or an ‘irresponsible public’ – we have to call it what it is, a lack of shelter leadership.
I don’t believe WA to be some statistical anomaly in Australia; full of people too stupid to be good owners, too irresponsible to care for their pets, and too backward to desex their animals. I don’t believe this, because it’s not true.
In fact the situation in WA, reflects exactly the situation in Victoria. Animal welfare groups blaming and treating the public as an enemy. Groups who should be working to engage the community, instead developing draconian legislation that only expands the powers of animal control to seize and kill people’s pets for reasons other than abuse. Shelters under-perform, while overwhelmingly the public do the right thing in caring for their pets and only a tiny fraction of animals ever need the assistance of a rescue group or pound.
Most stray pets are generated from those low income areas , least able to afford desexing. Instead of using this as an opportunity to recognise a trend and work on efforts to support these pet owners by offering the programs which have been shown to reduce shelter intakes (free and easily accessible pet desexing for disadvantaged owners); groups wag their finger and call their community ‘irresponsible’. Instead of support we offer them judgment.
We can turn this around. Hours spent ruminating on how to best punish the truly ‘irresponsible’ – jerks do exist – is time not identifying those things that could help the wider community make good pet ownership decisions. The No Kill model that has worked in the cities and in the country, in poor and in rich commuinities can and will work here.
WA is no more different than any other community. The solutions are exactly the same.