Animal management can be a huge asset to its community; working to keep its public safe, offering a service that protects people and their animals and leading the way in compassion. Or it can work against its public, seeing them as an enemy that needs to be coerced with more laws, more fines and expanded powers to officers to seize and kill pets.

In 2008, there was recognition of a pet crisis in Victoria;

Reporter: There’s currently 10 times the average number of dogs looking for a new home. Staff are blaming pressure on family budgets for the increase, for some it’s just too expensive to collect their precious pooch.

Sue Conroy: If the dog’s going to cost them fines for being out with the council, or microchipping fees and desexing fees, then maybe they’ll opt not to take the dog back home again.

In 2010, despite the experience that fines are an obstacle that keep people from collecting their lost animals ensuring shelters stay perpetually full, and ignoring the global financial meltdown which has stretched families even further than two years ago – issuing larger and larger fines is still the Victorian government’s preferred approach to animal management;

Errant dog owners face harsher fines

Wandering dogs deemed an imminent threat to people could be destroyed on the spot under laws coming into effect today.

Pet owners who fail to register their dogs or cats face doubled fines of almost $2400.

New penalties include:
DOUBLING of potential fines for owners who fail to apply for or renew dog and/or cat registrations to $2389.
FINES up to $717 for dogs found wandering during the day.
FINES doubled to $4778 if a dog attacks someone.
The laws also broaden the criteria for declaring a dog menacing or dangerous.

The Herald Sun, 1st Sept 2010

Victorian groups The Lost Dogs Home and the RSPCA, both supported this move by government to strengthen laws against roaming dogs (commonly known as ‘lost dogs’). The Cat Protection Society has long called for stronger laws against ’semi-owners’, the group least likely to have their free-roaming cat registered.

Prepare for a bloodbath as people who’ve lost pets give up all hope of being able to afford their release. Prepare for the enormous increase in ‘unavoidable’ killing as dogs who’ve never caused a problem in their family or community are branded of ‘dangerous’ breed and are seized from their families. And don’t forget the thousands of cat carers now facing fines of over $2,000 if they continue to give their local stray a little bit of food.

We are witness. We should not forget who stood by and not only let this appalling action against animals and their owners happen, but encouraged it. Those groups claiming to be working to ‘protect’ pets.

This?

Or this?

From a WA animal shelter’s ‘Adoption Adviser’;

The great offence that these potential adopters committed? To need some support in working to getting landlord approval to have a pet.

When people willing to open their hearts and families to a rescue pet feel the only option they have is to lie to us, then we’ve failed to give them the information they need to have a successful pet ownership experience. There are dozens of resources we can provide to people having landlord issues; with some coaching, a clever pet resume and a reference from the shelter to offer to take the pet back should the adoption not work out, maybe this landlord could be swayed to allowing this pet. Simply denying and scorning people who clearly wanted to adopt badly is petty and unhelpful. Not to mention the likelihood that these potential adopters will now go to a pet shop, the one place we beg people not to go to!

If you allow festering attitudes of ‘us against them’ to live in your shelter, then you will have a team not working to make adoptions happen, but to relish in the chance to refuse them.






More info:

and here:
http://www.petfriendlyrentals.com.au/blog/2010/02/petnet-tv-series-two-part-special-on-renting-with-pets/

In the past pounds and shelter defended the killing of healthy, friendly and treatable pets by claiming they weren’t really ‘killing’ at all… instead they used words like ‘putting to sleep’ and ‘euthanasia’ to describe the acceptance that pets would die at the hands of those who claimed to be working to care for them.

Modern rescue has moved beyond the idea that it is appropriate for those in animal welfare to gloss over the killing of an animal for convenience. The term ‘putting to sleep’ is insulting to our community and ‘euthanasia’ is a misnomer when referring to an animal that is anything but untreatably sick. By reclaiming our role as life savers and recognising each and every death is a profound failure on the part of those offering a safety net for animals, we begin to innovate and find ways to save their lives.

However, while some are working to change the future for animals, some of those deemed to be our shelter ‘leaders’ disgrace our industry by continuing to defend killing and hide behind euphemisms.

“Well for starters, the kill rate is something that I don’t use, I use the euthanasia rate.

If you talk about kill rates, I think the figure, I don’t like the term.”

Dr Graeme Smith, Managing Director, Lost Dogs Home – MTR Radio

Dr Smith then outlines the following figures for February (this year);

983 dogs and puppies admitted
596 reclaimed by their owners
166 adopted
216 killed

So of the 382 dogs who need shelter and treatment in the month, over 56% of them are killed. More than one killed for every one saved. Which would be awful for any pound. Except…

The Lost Dogs Home is not a council pound. They’re acting as one certainly; picking up valuable pound contracts by tendering to councils to take over their animal services. But they are in fact a private charity organisation with absolutely no obligation at all to take on more animals than they can reasonably save.

What’s more the resources of the local community are blocked by the monopoly of the ’super pound’ in North Melbourne. By releasing these pound contracts, other community animal welfare groups could get off the ground and start to take on the responsibility for saving the lives of these pets.

The community rejects killing as a method of animal management. The Managing Director of the Lost Dogs Home is still killing and defending killing by calling it something other than killing. This discrepancy between the public’s expectations and the performance of management means something has to give. Those fighting for the animals will not be silenced.

Breeders are in the spotlight in the ACT;

The territory’s 96 per cent success rate at finding homes for orphaned animals is putting more pressure on the ACT as Canberrans save dogs from NSW.

RSPCA ACT chief executive Michael Linke said, ”We’ve had a lot of people rescuing dogs on death row in Goulburn or Yass and handing them to us.

”Or people from places like Cooma will come into the ACT to surrender their dogs because they know about our re-homing rates.

”We’re dealing with 20 per cent more animals than five years ago.”

Pet owners no longer wanting to look after their dogs are waiting as long as three months to get their canines into the RSPCA, according to Ginninderra MLA Mary Porter.

Ms Porter outlined possible changes to laws this week to regulate the companion animal industry. The MLA wants laws to make it compulsory for published dog advertisements to contain the breeder’s specifics, including address and identification number.

So let me get this straight;

• We have an animal services department in the ACT (RSPCA + DAS) promoting their amazing success, getting their kill rates to a very low rate for dogs of 8%.

• People are waiting up to three months to get their dogs into care, because contrary to the idea that they’re uncaring irresponsible owners, they want their pets to be given a chance to find a new home, with a new family.

• People from Sydney are saving dogs from local pounds and bringing them to the ACT, to give them a chance to be saved.

And rather than celebrate this achievement; rather than bottle this success and demand that every pound in NSW implement the programs that have brought about these changes – we’ve again gone after the “greedy, evil breeders”?

If death row pets are being shipped across the border, the solution isn’t more laws for the community of the ACT, but for the pounds in NSW to take on board the amazing techniques being used in the ACT to save lives. If healthy, rehomable pets in NSW aren’t safe, then we need to demand that those running the pounds offer them safety.

It’s only when we stop chasing the outdated mantras of sheltering: that we need to eliminate “irresponsible owners”, eliminate puppy farms and create the perfect set of laws, before we can stop killing and instead fully implement those programs which genuinely make pounds a safe place for healthy, adoptable pets, that we will see kill rates brought down.

Targeting the community with new laws, ignores the true cause of pound killing; the behaviour of the pounds themselves. The ACT is successful because the leadership of their animal welfare organisations have decided to implement programs which save lives – there is no good reason why every single pound in NSW couldn’t be doing absolutely the same thing. The fact they aren’t should be outrageous to us all. Even more outrageous is that instead of leadership and advancement, we have more of the same empty ‘overpopulation’ rhetoric, pounds escaping criticism and more ineffective laws targeting the community.

Cat in a cage trap, QLD: Lonely Planet images

Is anyone else seeing a trend? From Queensland last year;

The Animal Management (Cats and Dogs) Act 2008 was passed on December 11 2008 and is designed to encourage responsible pet ownership by introducing compulsory registration and identification. The Act took effect throughout south-east Queensland councils on July 1 2009, with the rest of the state scheduled to come in line within two years.

And now today;

Leanne Christie fears her neighbourhood has become a street of missing moggies, after three of her much-loved cats disappeared.

The animal lover said the most recent loss was last week, when her seven-month-old kitten Cougar vanished one afternoon — but her neighbours have also complained of disappearing pets.

“I’ve had three cats disappear in a year and my neighbours say they’ve lost two cats this year,” she said. “Another lady down the street lost her cat and there’s always posters up for missing cats.”

She said she knew of about eight cats that had vanished in recent months.

Due to the large number of missing animals, Miss Christie believes they are being deliberately caught and taken away.

RSPCA Bundaberg shelter manager Vicki Beer said it was not unusual for free-roaming cats to disappear.

“Any neighbour could have a cat trap in their yard and it’s quite within their rights to trap your animal if it comes on their property,” Ms Beer said. “They should bring (trapped cats) to the RSPCA or tell the council, but that doesn’t always happen.”

See that’s bad. We should be against that. It’s not reducing shelter intakes (and killing) if people are trapping owned (and unowned!) cats and taking them to the shelter. We should be working on things that keep cats out of shelters.

Like this:”Cove officials, residents learn how to control city’s feral cat population”;

Mike Fry stressed that a lethal method to controlling cat colonies is an expensive and never-ending battle.

“Once the carrying capacity for the population is reached, for each adult that is removed, there are plenty of kittens to take its place,” he said.

The most successful method is the “TNR” process by which animals are trapped, neutered or spayed and released back into the colony. Fry said the goal is to sterilize at least 70 percent of the population — that is the key number to stop the growth of the colony.

“It’s the only solution right now that works,” he said. “And if done correctly, it can be an incredible success.”

We’re ignoring experiences like this, in preference of;

new law -> trapping increases -> blame society, come up with newer law -> empower trappers even further -> trapping increases…

Being played out time and time again. I wonder how many examples we’ll need, how many thousands of cats will need to die, before we finally acknowledge that blaming the public and dreaming up new laws is not working?

image mosippy’s photostream

Question: How do laws that make free-roaming, unowned cats a target for impoundment, reduce shelter killing?

Answer: They don’t

City’s war on cats

More than 270 cats found roaming within the City of Swan have been put down since new City bylaws were enacted.

Statistics obtained by the Community Newspaper Group confirm 273 cats have been euthanased since the City began impounding straying animals in January 2009.

Chief executive Mike Foley said under the City’s law residents are allowed to trap cats that enter their property uninvited.

Mr Foley said that from January to April this year, 82 cats had been taken in, with 46 being killed.

“Community acceptance of the City’s local law related to cats has been positive and the introduction of State legislation should add value to these existing local laws,” he said.

In 1993 the City of Perth subsidised a cat sterilisation scheme which enabled 591 cats to be sterilised at a cost to the City of around $11,500.00 (around $20 per cat).

In January 2009 the Swan council started their ‘trap and remove’ service. Residents could trap cats, the council could trap cats and they implemented a $100 fine to cat owners whose pets were impounded. Between the months of March and November 2009, council impounded 222 cats of which 183 were killed, (20 were rehomed and 19 were re-claimed). Similarily, this year the pound is also averaging 20 cats per month impounded.

The current City of Swan ’round-up and kill cats’ enforcement model has a budget of $60,000 per year.

Thats $243 PER CAT, of taxpayers money being spent on a program that is increasing intakes. Even if desexing has gone up to $50 per cat with inflation – capturing to kill is still nearly five times as expensive as a desexing program, increases killing in pounds and does little to help owners access cheap and free cat desexing.

But it doesn’t end there; cat groups are now rejecting this program stating;

(the new) proposed legislation – which would make sterilisation, micro chipping and registration compulsory – was a much better alternative than the local laws.

Ignoring that compulsory microchipping, registration and desexing is exactly the same model, but with a different name.

- It’s still based on enforcement, rather than community desexing services
- It still needs councils to invest in impounding cats that fall foul of the law
- It still is a ‘catch and destroy’ pass to animal management and cat hating community members for free-roaming, unowned animals, as a cat without an owner, isn’t going to be registered or desexed.

Except now it’s on a much grander scale, with the new proposed cat legislation mandating that every single council follow in the footsteps of Swan, invest thousands in enforcement and expanding trapping programs across the state.

No increase in the number of cats being desexed. More healthy cats being killed. Huge costs all round.

Question: How do laws that make free-roaming, unowned cats a target for impoundment, reduce shelter killing?

Answer: They don’t

From the Lilydale and Yarra Valley Leader;

‘Mt Evelyn nurse slams kill Bill proposal’

A Mt Evelyn vet nurse and dog owner says she fears that increased council powers under a proposed State Government blitz on dangerous dogs will lead to the needless killings of pets.

Tough new laws to crack down on dangerous dogs, including increased powers to immediately destroy them, were introduced to Parliament last month and are yet to be debated.

“This Bill is giving council officers with little or no dog behaviour training, knowledge or experience the authority to destroy dogs,” Ms Revell said.

Agriculture Minister Joe Helper said the laws would give council the authority to seize and destroy unregistered or unidentifiable dogs found unsupervised in public if they reasonably believed the dog was a danger to public safety.

“The proposed legislation will also empower an authorised officer to immediately destroy any dog that they believe will cause imminent serious injury or death to a person or another animal,” Mr Helper said.

Eltham canine behaviour specialist Catherine Saunders is worried.

“The name of this Bill is grossly misleading in its reference to dangerous dogs because it increases the powers of councils to destroy any dogs, whether or not they have been declared dangerous,” Mrs Saunders said.

“This act also allows for bias, personal opinions or preconceived ideas to go unquestioned, which may result in a beloved pet’s wrongful death.”

One would have to ask why a vet nurse and a dog trainer are the ones speaking out against this bill and in defence of dogs, while those in charge of managing dog welfare in Victoria, remain silent?

Well, not totally silent.

Giving animal management the power to kill roaming dogs, rather than impound them is unprecedented in Australia. The power to kill impounded dogs, without allowing them the community agreed holding time is in no way making the community safer and is simply unethical, convenience killing. With the rate of misidentification of dogs by professional animal welfare workers estimated to be around 70%, and with the new laws to be used against dogs identified with the vague description of ‘pit bull type’ – how can anyone who cares for dog welfare support such a grossly over-reaching law?;

Because it has benefits

What’s one of the biggest problems faced by animal shelters? Big black dog syndrome. Basically, a lot of the nice, friendly dogs you get in look like this;

While the dogs that are easily adopted and walk out the door, look like this;

With the huge momentum of No Kill across the world, and the community of Australia demanding groups release their kill statistics, those groups who’ve built their business on collecting valuable pound contracts, killing the majority of the pets and saving a few, can see their empires beginning to crumble. If they’re not willing to work with community rescue groups to save the lives of pets and would rather kill, than share their fortunes, then they need to find some manner in which to defend this monopoly as the animal sheltering world evolves around them.

The first effort was to change the code of practice to exclude community rescue groups. Thanks to community backlash this is now under review, but these efforts to make community foster care groups illegal, would have allowed pets to continue to be killed because there is ‘no alternative’.

This second effort is to manipulate the kill rates of these ’super pounds’ in Victoria. The idea that each and every pet should be given the chance at a fair evaluation, kept healthy and adopted into a home no matter how long it takes, is incompatible with the ‘push them out the backdoor in the bodybag then blame the irresponsible public’ business plan.

Given big, black dogs can be the hardest to rehome, simply by expanding the killing they are already doing for ‘pit bulls’, creating a new classification for killing – ‘government mandated dangerous dog’ – pets which would take up space, or take an extended time to rehome, can be killed without question.

Like ‘feral’ cats (any cat can be determined to be ‘feral’ and therefore unrehomable and excluded from annual shelter figures) ‘pit bull type’ is suitably vague, open to interpretation and hard enough to quantify that it gives pounds and shelters the ability to kill any dog that comes into care, call it ‘of pit bull type’ and not have it impact their statistics… and volia! high kill rates can be manipulated to look low again.

Expanding the killing

We must reject these laws which mandate the killing of friendly, healthy animals. This was never about ‘public safety’, but simply insulating groups from criticism of shelter killing, maintaining control of pound contracts and blocking the community from taking action on behalf of animals.

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)

Why won’t these new cat laws reduce shelter killing?

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.

But surely, it will increase the rates of desexing?!

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.

If this were really about bringing down shelter kill rates we have to help, not blame

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.

Reducing shelter killing is about reducing intakes

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 Lost Dogs Home is again calling for a ‘pet owner licencing scheme’ on the back of their efforts to develop a short pre-adoption quiz for people adopting from their shelter (I know, screening potential adopters before adoption – it’s ‘revolutionary’).

“Pet Licences issued by The Lost Dogs’ Home should be made mandatory across Australia”.
Lost Dogs Home website

But should they really? Lets look at the ‘reasons pets end up in shelters’;

Adoption returns
We can reasonably assume that there isn’t a huge problem with people returning adopted animals to the Lost Dogs Home. If there is, then certainly there is something wrong with the way they’re matching pet to owner and the follow up support they’ve been offering; because this isn’t common amongst rescues. So that could be fixed by the pound doing a better job.

Lost pets
Most intakes of any pound with a Council contract are the result of pets getting loose. This is why pounds exist and that’s ok. Having photos of each animal up on the internet helps owners be reunited with their animals, so the Lost Dogs’s Home could do a better job by taking photo of each pet on intake and getting it up on the web.

Fines, which deter people from collecting their pets, could be waived to people whose pets have never been impounded before – that again is the pound understanding its public and doing a better job.

Surrenders
The smallest intakes of a pound, despite popular opinion, are owner surrenders.

A percentage of people have a genuine or unforseen reason for giving up their pet; moving house, getting sick, pets not getting along, change of family circumstance, loss of job.

A percentage are less-than-genuine (however still valid because if someone doesn’t want their pet, it’s important to get that pet into a new home); including no longer ‘wanting’ the pet, unrealistic expectations of pet ownership, un-treated behavioural problems and unwanted litters.

And some people have genuine reasons relating to that particular pet (unmanageable aggression, hyperactivity, personality clashes between pet and owner, or pets who don’t cope with a change of circumstance, like moving to a smaller property).

It’s complicated

They’re proposing that of the 6 million owned cats and dogs of Australia, of which only a couple of hundred thousand use shelters each year, where most are claimed – and with the myriad of unforseen, genuine reasons for surrender, with only a tiny percentage of pets entering shelters because their owners are fickle…

…. the easiest way to stop shelters killing these animals is to quiz every single pet owning family before they get a pet.

Sorry, what?

The easiest way for the Management of the Lost Dogs Home to effect the number of pets killed in their shelters – is to stop killing pets in their shelters.

- Not killing young, or sick pets who could be saved by foster care.

- Not supporting draconian and unhelpful owner targeting initiatives like the Frankston ‘desex before release’ pound program, mandatory pet desexing or ‘Who’s for Cats’… all of which have seen impoundments and killing surge.

The idea of a national pet owner licencing scheme is nothing but Australia’s most ineffective shelter – the one who kills a larger percentage of their intakes than any other – expanding their failed programs beyond Victoria (the home of some of the worst pet laws in Australia). We must reject the idea, not just because it passes the buck for shelter killing back to ‘bad owners’ – a theory which has since been exploded as simply an excuse for poor shelter performance – but because those who are driving it, have no experience at all in leading a successful, life-saving community.

Let’s not follow any more ‘great’ initiatives from Victoria until they are able to get even one of their communities away from the bulk-killing of shelter animals. Forget the rest of Australia, so far they only work the leaders of animal sheltering in Victoria need to do, is to drag themselves out of the high-kill mentality.

Graeme Smith – CEO – Lost Dogs’ Home

Bendigo was one of the first Victorian councils to introduce cat management laws.

In the 2002/03 period the council impounded 534 cats, killing 338 of them. In 2004, they introduced a cat curfew, using the cat haters in the community to ‘teach cat owners a lesson’:

06 July 2004 – Residents will be on the front line of the City of Greater Bendigo’s cat curfew, officially introduced last night.

Under the plan, the council will supply cat traps to locals who notice a breach of the sunset-to-sunrise curfew.

Mayor Greg Williams said enforcement was not the primary reason for the curfew.”This is really about education and about getting people to do the right thing,” he said.

And by all accounts the program was an enormous ’success’, with a surge of impoundments and cat haters beating down the doors to get traps;

31 July 2004 – Record numbers of Bendigo cats were on death row yesterday, less than a month after the local council introduced a cat curfew.

Officials yesterday confirmed that the RSCPA animal shelter in East Bendigo had more than six times its usual number of cats waiting to be euthanised.

Shelter manager Fred Cameron said he had never seen so many cats abandoned in his 30 years in the job.

“This time of year, being cold and outside kitten season, we would probably have about 10 cats in cages.

“We have over 60. It has gone berserk.” Mr Cameron said fear of the fines was the main reason behind locals bringing in their cats.

“There are two reasons for this. A lot of the cats are being surrendered by their owners because of the cat curfew, and a lot are being brought in because neighbours are trapping cats,” he said. “Elderly people are probably getting a bit frightened that if their cats get out they will get into trouble.

“Hopefully, we can find owners for them.” Mr Cameron said he had heard council rangers were calling for reinforcements to deal with the increased work.

“The rangers are being run off their feet,” he said.

“I believe there is a waiting list for cat cages and they have ordered, and are expecting, another 12 cat traps.”

More info on the programs results from the Age;

Cat-hating residents are enthusiastically trapping their neighbours’ nocturnally roaming cats and sending them to the shelter. Meanwhile, some cat-owning residents – particularly the elderly – are so stressed at the prospect of the $51 fine they have voluntarily relinquished their kitties.

Since Bendigo’s curfew started, the pound has received 123 cats, up from 79 in June. Registered cats are returned to owners but the night-larking unclaimed moggies are put down after eight days if a suitable home is not found.

Fred Cameron, manager of the Bendigo RSPCA shelter, said most of the cats handed in were from neighbours’ traps. “The curfew sort of helped people who don’t get on with their neighbours to catch their cat and bring it in and get it impounded,” Mr Cameron said.

Supporters of these kinds of initiatives often say the surge dies down after the initial excitement of the trap happy masses. They claim shelter impound rates return to, not just normal levels, but lower as all the cats are removed from the streets.

So more than 6 years on, just how are the cats faring in Bendigo?

Unwanted felines face death
20 May, 2010

Kittens and cats are being put down at alarming rates at the Bendigo RSPCA shelter, as owners fail to take responsibility for their pets. According to statistics, supplied by the Victorian RSPCA, during 2008-09 the Bendigo shelter took in 1817 cats and 1243, or 68 per cent, were put down.

And what’s the reason?

An RSPCA spokesman said the high number in cats and kittens being put down was often due to very low microchip and registration rates.

Given that cats are still being impounded after years and years of trapping, and that the cats still entering Bendigo shelter at record levels have very ‘low microchip and registration rates’, is it such a stretch to believe that these cats, have never actually had an owner?

Study after study after study after study have shown that the shelter cat population is primarily driven by a self-sustaining, unowned population. Initiatives that target owners, rarely do more than put unowned cats in breach of some new ordinance and see them targeted for removal.

While it’s easy to blame an ‘irresponsible public’, it’s not proving to be a very effective technique for reducing shelter intakes, or saving the lives of cats.