Kingston in Victoria has been held up by cat welfare advocates as one of the ‘good guys’ introducing in 2008 compulsory registration of pets over 3 months old and the requirement that all pets be desexed before registration… or mandatory desexing by stealth.
Did Kingston have a cat ‘problem’? Well according to their Domestic Animal Management Plan, they impound just 350 cats each year. Did compulsory desexing fix their cat ‘problems’? Of course not. As we’ve seen time and time again, mandates which target owners do little to improve outcomes for cats as overwhelmingly, cats who have owners aren’t the ‘problem’. It’s the large population of unowned cats who need help.
Unsatisfied, the council have today added a night time curfew to their cat management laws;
Kingston cat owners who let their moggies roam the streets at night will face a $60 fine from next month.
The council’s controversial cat curfew comes into effect from Monday, November 1, grounding cats from dusk till dawn.
The curfew supported by the RSPCA and the Cat Protection Society;
Cat Protection Society executive director Dr Carole Webb said a curfew, already adopted by several Melbourne councils, was in the animals’ interests because it cut the risk of injury and spread of diseases such as feline AIDS.
So now they have their curfew, what happens next?
Once the curfew is official… the council will issue warning notices and ads before starting an after-hours’ trapping program.
Council has been giving the blessing of animal welfare groups to trap and kill cats without owners.
Think its just this one council? Nuh uh – animal ‘welfare’ groups have been busy, busy busy!
From the 1st October Whitehorse Council, also in Victoria, enacted their night cat curfew which was created under advisement from the peak animal welfare bodies in the state including RSPCA, Lost Dogs Home and Cat Protection Society.
Lock your kitty away at night or face a $119 fine.
That is the scenario facing cat owners after Whitehorse Council approved a cat curfew at its meeting last week. The new laws, which will be enacted on October 1, will require cats to be locked in their homes from 8pm to 6am. In a raft of changes to its Domestic Animals Management Plan, the council will also make desexing cats and dogs mandatory from April 9, 2011, and ban cats from bushland reserves.
Did Whitehorse Council have a cat ‘problem’? Their Domestic Animal Management Plan show impounds of 500 cats for the year, with a rehome/rehousing rate of 42%.
This council isn’t wasting their own time in having a staff member doing the night time trapping (although they’re hiring an ‘education officer at the cost of $70,000)… they’ve simply outsourced the work to the community’s cat haters;
The council officer’s reports said Whitehorse would need to spend $9000 on 30 new cat traps if the cat curfew proposal became law.
Two councils, both under advice from the state’s major animal groups, both set to increase impoundments and killing of free-roaming cats. All in the name of improving cat welfare.
