Cat groups in Western Australia are celebrating, as the pledge for statewide cat laws was today unveiled by the government;
Cat Haven operations manager Roz Robinson said she hoped to see laws soon to stop thousands of cats and kittens being euthanised, better identify lost animals and reduce problems caused by unsterilised cats. (ref)
Local Government Minister John Castrilli said proposed State Government legislation should reduce the high proportion of stray cats in WA.
More than 5000 cats are put down by the Cat Haven each year.
Under the proposal, local governments would be required to administer and enforce compulsory cat identification through micro-chipping, as well as compulsory registration and sterilisation of cats.
It is estimated about 200,000 WA homes have cats, with millions more cats roaming feral. (ref)
All of the initiatives (desexing, microchipping and registration) “local governments would be required to administer and enforce” are about to be turned against the “millions of cats” without owners. This won’t result in less killing, but much, much more as councils are empowered to trap every unowned cat falling foul of the new laws.
According to the Consultation Paper this new legislation, “allows for cats found in a public place or on private property to be seized and then rehomed or disposed of”. With free-roaming cats usually not suitable to live as housepets, this is a formula to expand shelter killing from a few thousand each year, into tens of thousands..
But will removing cats, lead to the elimination of street cats? According to the most current science on the topic of feral cats; the ‘Review of cat ecology and management strategies in Australia’ eradication in places that aren’t islands, or bounded by cat proof fencing is unrealistic. That is, cats can and do reproduce and reenter a non-isolated area at a rate that exceeds even the most enthusiastic trapping program.
Sending our councils out, mandating they enforce cat laws and begin trapping unowned cats, with no likely end to the trapping, it’s delusive to think this could ever result in less cats killed in pounds.
From the Consultation Paper;
It is acknowledged that the effectiveness of mandatory sterilisation in reducing the numbers of unwanted cats is not conclusive. Studies indicate that there are already high levels of sterilisation of owned cats at around 90%. Research undertaken for the WA Cats Advisory Committee indicated that 88% of domestic cats were sterilised.
Research also indicates that the high levels of sterilisation in owned cats exceeds the rate calculated for zero population growth, which is consistent with a national survey which found a steady decline in the number of owned cats.
The majority of owned cats are desexed in WA. Those that aren’t desexed are living in some of the poorest suburbs of perth, meaning that support services are required not new laws and fines.
Compulsory desexing laws expend resources rounding up and killing animals. Those same resources can and should be spent desexing animals for people who many not be able to do so themselves. The cost of seizing, holding, killing and disposing of a cat because their owner has not desexed it could cover the cost of sterilising the pet, plus others.
Other countries that are bringing their shelter kill rates down, have done so not with mandatory desexing (there is no example in the world which has shown mandatory desexing to have brought down shelter kill rates, in fact major animal welfare groups in the US no longer support it).
But there are things that have been shown to bring down shelter kill rates and stabilise free-roaming cat populations.
If this were really about reducing killing;
– Animal rescue groups would lobby government to support the development of a community vet program. Councils would offer any person on a pension free cat desexing vouchers, along with a program for semi-cat owners and colony carers.
– Rather than invest in expanding each councils pound facilities to be able to process cats, cat welfare groups would be lobbying for protection to all free-roaming cats. If a cat is found to be feral and unsuitable for rehoming, then it should be desexed and returned to where it was collected. ‘Barn cat’ adoptions can help people adopt outside cats.
– Education campaigns should move away from ‘Who’s for Cats’ style promoting impoundment and towards promoting awareness of semi-owned cats, support for community cat carers and awareness of council desexing resources.
To reduce the number of animals killed in our shelters, we must minimise the numbers we take in. We don’t do this by creating mandatory desexing laws that invent more reasons for cats to be impounded, or for them to be seized from owners who can’t afford to desex, or from those who care for community cats. Mandatory desexing only increases impoundments, and therefore shelter killing.
Programs which reduce shelter killing, help the community with affordable, accessible pet desexing. These programs are cheaper than a law because law enforcement is really, really expensive. They’re more effective than a law because everyone is willingly involved, rather than being accused, persecuted or having their pet removed. They’re better for cats, because despite what many would have you believe, a healthy cat, is NOT better off dead than semi-owned and cared for by the community.
Reactionary laws, which treat the public as a enemy that needs to be coerced and punished simply build barriers between animal groups and the very community we need to help us manage and care for our community cats.
The table found at http://bit.ly/adK3o7 (a little out of date now) from The domestic cat: the biology of its behaviour might be useful ammunition.
AFAIK the ONLY obvious difference between the UK and the US and Australia is that UK shelters and pounds simply will not take in allegedly “stray” cats unless they are sick, injured or in poor body condition.
The Swiss seem to be even better, but then they have a cultural attachment to rules and regulations!
Rosemary, you are always a fountain of knowledge! Thanks for your contributions!
Unfortunately, it really does highlight just how far Australia has to go, to catch up with the UK.
I’m not sure feral cats living in supported colonies is humane. They are usually susceptible to disease, can starve, suffer injuries from other animals and are generally in worse health than owned cats. Not to mention the horrific effect cats have on wildlife. I grew up in the country & saw awful examples as a kid of feral cats just surviving with closed up eyes, bad flu. And I used to feed them! Sometimes it’s kinder to humanely put them to sleep as from what I saw their quality of life is poor.
But here’s the thing that Australians don’t seem to be able to get their head around… we don’t get to choose whether cats live free-roaming and unowned, any more than we get to choose the population surge of kangaroos on golf-courses, the boom-bust cycle of rainbow lorikeets at fruit harvesting time or snakes living near silos and farms because that’s where the rodents are.
Cats live where cats can live. If the school oval is covered with enough sandwich crusts to feed the mice that would support seven cats – you can bet there’ll be seven cats living behind the school canteen. We can ‘choose’ to trap and kill those cats; and then trap another seven soon after, and another seven soon after… we can ‘choose’ to do that verbatim. Or we can choose to desex those seven cats, put someone from the school in charge of them and try and make life a little easier. We can even get the carer to work on cleaning up the site, so it’s less attractive to mice. But this is a holistic solution about undoing the damage we humans have caused – not a choice that ‘we just don’t want the cats’.
We have changed our environment in a way that works for some animals, has been disastrous for others. While animal welfare groups like to blame ‘irresponsible owners’, that flies in the face of every study on cat population dynamics that’s ever been done – cats entering shelters have never had owners. Blaming the 200,000 cat owners of WA, for the millions running wild across the state is like blaming rabbit owners for Australia’s population of wild rabbits. The two aren’t even close to being effected by each other anymore.
Cats living wild are exposed to exactly the same life-hazards as any other wild animal. We wouldn’t suggest all possums should be locked in zoos for their own protection, so its illogical to think cats need to be. Certainly, they get sick and die sometimes. But of a study of 26,000 cats entering shelters in Victoria (one of our colder, harsher climates) 78% were stray admissions (unowned cats) and 73% received an optimum body score (healthy weight score). These guys weren’t doing it tough; they had an advantage that old wild animals didn’t – the ability to live in close proximity to humans and therefore receive food and care.
The biggest killer of cats isn’t ‘living wild’ – it’s being impounded and killed in an animal shelter.