“… of a radical or a revolutionary is not the willingness to confront the orthodoxy and arrogance of the rulers but the readiness to contest illusions and falsehoods among close friends and allies.” ~ Christopher Hitchens

In the field of animal protection, with large, national organizations taking in the lion’s share of resources for the stated purpose of helping animals even as they use that money and influence to undermine the No Kill cause – the need for the public and activists to become more savvy – to learn to read between the lines of cleverly worded press releases and fundraising appeals – is, in fact, an urgent need. We need to learn to separate whimsy over substance, to demand results, and to be intolerant of those organizations which never evolve their approach to overcome obstacles to success, that endlessly fundraise on a problem they do not strategically combat, and which sacrifice the best interest of animals to their merciless, greedy fundraising machines.

This is a must read article, showing how the movement will need to be driven here in Australia too, should we ever want to see shelters be a safe place for pets.

Nathan Winograd – Pat the bunny

Photo: BBC News

If the stray cat is not friendly, it may be feral or semi-feral. Feral and semi-feral cats are able to look after themselves and, so long as the feral cat is healthy, leaving it alone may be the best option.

TNR (trap, neuter, release) is well established in Britain, while major investment by welfare groups in programs which offer free cat desexing to free-roaming cats of semi and colony carers, have for several decades supported community efforts in managing cat numbers. In fact the leading cat charity of the UK, Cats Protection helps desex more than 170,000 cats per year.

Along with embracing free-roaming cats, animal welfare groups in the UK encourage ‘barn cat’ adoptions, further cementing the idea that ‘working’ cats are a desirable member of the neighbourhood.

The effectiveness of their programs is evident; the public are encouraged to help keep cats out of shelters, meaning healthy, untame cats aren’t inflating shelter kill rates;

In Australia, the situation is quite different. Our major animal welfare organisations encourage people to feel that cats should be neither seen, nor tolerated. The RSPCA was a driving force behind probably the most well known cat campaign in Australia - the 'Who's for Cats' program. Encouraging anti-cat sentiment in the community, the program asked people to take action against cats, trap or call council and ensure any unowned cats were impounded. The results have been of course new records in the number of cats killed in pounds.

With the blessing of major animal welfare groups, councils enthusiastically mandate all kinds of restrictions surrounding cats in the suburbs, including curfews. One of the first to do so was Bendigo council. In 2004 it introduced a curfew designed to ‘get cats off the streets’ and by gosh, it did! (Read more: Bendigo: a case study in cat management)

Which brings us to today’s climate. Where cat haters rule;

A Strathdale resident claiming to be euthanasing wandering cats has Bendigo’s feline-loving community outraged.

About three weeks ago a notice appeared on a community notice board at Strathdale Shopping Centre warning cat owners that their pets would be trapped and “humanely destroyed” if they came onto that person’s property.

A subsequent notice advised the person had killed three cats, two with collars, and was thinking about “tanning their hides”.

Sure, any psycho could make up a letter like this and post it for attention, but what is really disturbing is the enormous number of comments in support of his actions;

“If your cat was locked away like all dogs this would not be a problem!”

“Simple solution to this people, keep your pets locked up like responsible pet owners should, if you can’t be sure of your cats whereabouts at all times then you should not own one.”

So if a cat is ‘out’, an owner is at fault and anything that happens to it, is really the fault of an ‘irresponsible owner’ – dangerous thinking which drives 1,700 cats into the Bendigo pound annually, most of which are killed there.

Surely, those advocating ‘for’ the cats would be calling for more acceptance? Unfortunately, no;

(Bendigo Animal Welfare and Community Services president Debbie Edwards) said she empathised with people who were plagued by nuisance cats.

“Cats are highly-developed hunters, they do kill things, and they can be noisy. No one wants to wake up to the sound of cats fighting,” she said.

“And if you’re a gardener you don’t want to be digging up cat poo, there’s nothing worse than the smell of cat poo. I fully support people’s right to use cat traps, but we don’t support the destruction of cats, that is against the law.”

By following the major welfare groups lead in supporting the idea that street-cats are beyond compassion, we’ve chosen vilification, abuse and killing for the cats of our community. We now have undeniable evidence that we’ve empowered the wrong people to act. We, as cat lovers, now have an obligation to advocate for the rights of cats to live free of harassment, if we ever want to see a future where our pet cats are safe and shelters stop the wholesale slaughter of unowned cats.

See also: There’s no No Kill without TNR

The Lost Dogs Home is circling the wagons to defend themselves from the public questioning of their high kill rates and multi-million dollar budget as presented in their annual report, deleting posts from Facebook and locking down their fan page. However I did receive the following response when I asked some questions:

“Hi Michelle, as a long term critic of mainstream animal welfare organisations you know as well as anyone know that we are always working on ways to improve animal welfare in Australia. You are also more than aware of the many proactive services the Home offers to increase the number of pets identified and our initiatives to adopt more unwanted pets into homes.”

I’d like to think rather than being a long term critic of ‘mainstream organisations’, I’m actually a long term critic of the unnecessary killing of pets. I’d also like to think I’ve been an avid supporter of rescue as a whole, but when an organisation simply refuses to reflect the community’s belief that shelters should offer ’shelter’ to homeless animals, ignores the experience of more progressive organisations which have eliminated shelter killing, and squanders millions of dollars killing, rather than saving pets… then I feel being ‘critical’ is the only appropriate response.

Question to the LDH number 1.

Cat impounds at the Lost Dogs Home have increased only slightly in a decade (from 8,213 in 1999, to 10,995 in 2011); however your cat adoptions dropped this year to less than 1,000. Given intakes seem to be remaining steady, and with the enormous discrepancy between adoptions and intakes, can you please tell us what programs you have planned in the future to reduce the number of cats entering your organisation?

Answer from the LDH:

“We will have to agree to disagree on the solution to the cat overpopulation crisis. That being said we are dedicated to raising awareness for what it means to be a responsible owner and to reducing the number of unwanted, undesexed and feral cats. You can find lots of information about our new cat facility, satellite kitten adoption programs and how well it’s working on our website.”

I think it is fantastic that the Lost Dogs Home is promoting “responsible pet ownership” – I really do. But when did this become an acceptable substitute for saving the lives of those pets who are already born, in their care and who are needing protection?

This organisation killed nearly 9,000 of the 11,000 cats they impounded for the year. Just think for one moment, how many cats that is. Look at the cat at the start of this article and then try and imagine thousands more like him. Killed by an organisation who claims to be a champion for cat welfare.

“Raising awareness” didn’t help these cats. Sure, maybe one day in the future “raising awareness” will lead to less cats somehow… whatever. But how does running an awareness campaign which might work tomorrow, make it OK for an animal welfare organisation, to seek out and kill today the very same animals it claims to be protecting? To each year accept several million dollars worth of donations from pet lovers to save the lives of cats… while simultaneously accepting several million dollars worth of local council contracts to trap and kill them?

We absolutely do have to “agree to disagree” on the solution to cat overpopulation in shelters – namely that I do not believe in shelters artificially inflating numbers by running cat trapping & killing programs on behalf of local councils is a solution. I do not believe killing cats en-mass is a solution. I do not believe that continuing to ignore the experience of shelters who have reduced and even eliminated cats being killed offering their communities bulk, targeting, free and discount desexing is a solution. I do not believe using the donations of pet lovers to kill cats is a solution. I do not believe an ‘awareness campaign’, rather than active and proven programs to reduce cat impounds is a solution.

And the truth is, neither do the Lost Dogs Home. They have no five year plan to eliminate the killing of cats in their shelter. They have no ten year plan to eliminate the killing of cats in their shelter. They plan to kill cats every year for the forseeable future. Because their leadership believes there is no other way. How’s that plan working out as a ’solution to cat overpopulation’ so far?

Question to the LDH number 2.

This year you adopted 2,168 dogs, but killed 2,879. Is it your belief that more than half of unclaimed dogs are truly unsavable?

Answer from the LDH:

“The Lost Dogs’ Home operates on a totally open-door policy. We do not turn any pets away and accept everything. We have a committed team who do everything we can to reunite lost pets with their owners and rehouse as many abandoned dogs and cats as possible.”

So there you have it folks – the reason the Home kills more than half of unclaimed dogs is because the organisation takes them in. If the dogs weren’t taken in, the Home wouldn’t kill them – simple! Meanwhile, there is no hope of less killing whatsoever, as they are doing “everything” they can.

The killing certainly has nothing to do with the fact scared and lost pets aren’t having their pictures posted online to make it easier for owners to find them. It certainly isn’t that the Home refuses to allow anymore than <1% of dogs to be released to rescue groups. It certainly isn't that the Home's "temperament testers" fail more than 50% of the unclaimed dogs and they wind up at the kill room. And it certainly isn't that the Home holds more than 20 council contracts, growing every year, ensuring that their facilities are often at capacity, and overcapacity during holidays and new years.

The idea that more than half of all unclaimed dogs processed by this organisation - be they stray or surrender - have a poor prognosis for rehoming or rehabilitation is inconceivable. The fact the Home defend this level of killing in 2011, with what we know about shelter dynamics and while other much less fortunate pounds and shelters save nearly every pet is revolting and unjustifiable.

Shelters across the country are saving lives by working with the community. Shelters across the world have eliminated shelter killing in its entirety. Continuing to peddle the notion of ‘doing the public’s dirty work’ while squandering the community’s resources should no longer be accepted.

Question to the LDH number 3.

Do you believe the Home slogan; “100% Commitment to Re-Homing Savable Pets” is accurate and not misleading to the public, given that your organisation killed 11,872 pets in a single year?

Answer from the LDH:

Yes, we are most definitely 100% commitment to rehoming saveable pets.

Well I’m totes reassured; how about you?

Image: The Lost Dogs Home – The Herald Sun

How many pets would you expect to see saved in a year with a budget of over $12 million dollars?

$12 million dollars is a veritable fortune in animal welfare circles. From the tiniest rescue group working on a shoestring, through to the grandest private shelter; $12 million dollars should be able to save the lives of tens of thousands of pets, with some left over to put towards impoundment prevention and relationship building with the community. So news that the The Lost Dogs Home have released their annual report, showing that they this year, like previous years, recorded “revenue from continuing operations” of $12,375,271, should be a cause for celebration from pet lovers and homeless animals.

But unfortunately despite its enormous resources, the Lost Dogs Home continues to be a disaster for pets.

This week the Home is imploring the community to keep their ‘best friend safe’ over the holiday period, listing five things pet owners can do to ensure their pets aren’t spooked and lost during new years eve celebrations, and that…

… the best hope for lost, frightened animals is to be picked up by The Lost Dogs’ Home’s after-hours ambulances or a local council’s animal control officer… Sadly there is no guarantee that every pet can be reached in time, before the worst happens.

The ‘worst’ is obviously the pet being injured or killed on the street. But what are the ‘best’ outcomes for pets once they enter the Lost Dogs Home’s ‘care’?

The report shows over the 2010/11 year the outcomes for pets were as follows;

3,525 – adopted
7,407 – returned to owner
11,872 – killed (2,879 dogs, 8,993 cats)

This means for every single one of the pets the organisation processes, they make a whopping $536, regardless of the outcome for the pet. By these calculations, they make a staggering $6.3 million dollars for pets who are simply killed and their bodies incinerated.

But how can this be happening?

Local councils pay this organisation for pets collected during holiday celebrations. ‘Pet ambulances’ aren’t an altruistic effort to protect pets, but a money generating investment. Rather than pets being returned to owners as a public service, these ‘ambulances’ are simply glorified ranger vans impounding on behalf of councils, taking pets to the North Melbourne pound. It’s also worth noting they aren’t paid to per-pet returned to owner, but can hold and kill the pet and still be paid for their services.

Cats fare even worse than dogs in this purely profit-driven arrangement. Each year, local councils pay the Lost Dogs Home to actively trap unowned cats and bring them to the Home. Despite being perpetually at capacity with lost pet cats and friendly rehomable strays, the organisation chooses to take on the extra role of ‘cat slaughterhouse’, offering untame cats no option other than death. Untame cats, or those acting feral cat be killed immediately. Each cat-trapping council tender earns the organisation a yearly salary and keeps their intake numbers high, but the organisation does little to actually combat cat-overpopulation, offering just 100 discount desexing surgeries per year under the ‘Who’s for Cats’ program – while they kill close to 10,000 cats annually.

Along with council income, they also receive around $6 million dollars in bequests and donations annually, ($7.5m in donations and legacies this year). Pet lovers hoping their contributions will see pets saved, ironically supporting one of the largest killer of companion animals in the country.

With all this money being generated from lost and homeless pets, what incentive does the Lost Dogs Home have to reduce intakes and killing? None. Even as the solutions to shelter killing have been available to the animal sheltering community since the 80’s and in the popular media since 2009 they still continue to choose to squander the enormous fortune given to them by the pet loving community every year… and kill rather than save the lives of pets.
………………………….

What can I do?

This section has been added to address the large public outcry & requests for people asking “what can I do?”

To lend the words of Lisa, an awesome animal advocate:
The rewards for killing are obscene. That this is accepted without screaming from the rooftops is also distressing, however most in the public domain have no idea. Yes people can stop making financial contributions to LDH but this will have minimal impact. In addition to the bequests, the bulk of their revenue comes from the very lucrative pound contracts. Losing these is what will hurt. Being front page news for their kill rates will hurt. Being held to account by those who support them will hurt. Complaining on facebook may relieve people’s frustration but it makes no difference to the animals. Invest your time wisely and write to all the councils who provide “kill” work to LDH and demand they get with the times and the No Kill movement. Contact the media and demand LDH becomes front page news. If you really want change, you need to work for it and demand change.

If you are in one of the following municipalities, then it is up to you as a ratepayer to demand change. If you are an animal lover it is up to you to let the media know this is important.

The Lost Dogs Home provide pound services for 10 councils (Melbourne, Moreland, Moonee Valley, Brimbank, Maribyrnong, Wyndham, Hobson’s Bay, Darebin, Hume and Port Phillip).

They provide animal management services for the City of Greater Bendigo. The Home owns a property at Cranbourne west to service the Cities of Bayside, Casey, Cardinia, Frankston, Greater Dandenong and Kingston.

They are a leading organisation in providing animal management and pound services for councils. The Home hold more than 20 council contracts. (ref)

For the last several decades, as the animal sheltering system in Australia grew into an industry supporting multimillion dollar charities, we were told the reason for shelter killing was simple; ‘bad pet owners’. We were told the shelters were the victims in the situation, forced to do the irresponsible public’s dirty work and that they had no choice but to kill. In fact, killing was a gift to animals from the shelter workers who cared *more* than the public. We should be thanking them for their efforts.

Now, as the community are able to compare the performance of pounds and shelters across the country and the world, we have been able to see that the responsibility for shelter killing lay solely with those who run the shelters and do the killing. Pounds and shelters who embrace their community, emphasise returning pets to their owners, offer a welcoming and convenient service to potential adopters, and work to keep untame cats from being impounded, have eliminated killing in their communities virtually overnight. Pounds and shelters who choose to run foster care programs and rescue group outreach, provide options for pets other than death. While those who engage pet lovers through social media, clever adoption promotions and local media have harnessed community compassion to give every healthy, treatable pet a second chance at happiness.

So now, pounds and shelters who have failed to embrace this new lifesaving model have a problem.

- How do you defend killing, when your community knows it is no longer necessary?

- How do you defend killing, in the face of proven alternatives to killing?

Unable to continue to blame ‘irresponsible pet owners’ for the killing, they have created a new villain de jour.

‘A lack of collaboration’.

If you’re in animal welfare circles, you will have heard it;

“We can’t save the pets unless we all collaborate and work together. Rescues are unsupportive and critical. The public are misinformed and it’s hard on shelter and pound workers to have to defend themselves. Animal advocates are extremists and cyber-bullies, and shelters can’t be expected to make positive change when they’re being treated like this. Given they’re working under such hostile conditions, we should in fact, be thanking them for their efforts…”

‘A lack of collaboration’ is the new ‘irresponsible pet owner’. It’s code for; we’re not changing and here’s a red herring, the hoop we want you to jump through, that deflects blame away from us and our failings and back onto the wider community.

Most reprehensibly, ‘a lack of collaboration’ lays blame on those in the community fighting hardest for pets; the whistle-blower rescue who shines a light on high kill rates, inhumane conditions or abuse. The animal advocate who compiles stats and information for their own community. The animal lover who takes their concerns about unnecessary killing to their local councillor. THESE people are now being blamed for shelter killing. By defending animals, they are be accused of harming animals by interfering with the process of ‘collaboration’… and it would be laughable, if it weren’t so tragic.

It doesn’t take ‘collaboration’ to extend your trading hours so people can visit on weekends and after work. You don’t need‘collaboration’ before you open your doors to volunteers and foster carers. It doesn’t take ‘collaboration’ to host an adoption event, or create an off-site adoption program or a pet-of-the-week media blast. It doesn’t take ‘collaboration’ to stop sending your rangers to impound healthy, free-roaming cats.

These things take leadership, not collaboration.

Collaboration is a goal. A nice-to-have. It makes things easier for everyone and is the icing on a mature ‘animal sheltering industry’ cake. But it is neither they key to saving lives – nor a lack of it, a hurdle to saving them. Collaboration must never mean ignoring the ultimate violence against animals – their unnecessary death – in order to all ‘just get along’. And we must reject any suggestion that a lack of collaboration is the reason for animals being killed, or an acceptable reason to continue killing.

Above is a photo of the weekend’s protests by animal lovers, following the release of video footage of pets being killed at the Geelong Animal Welfare Society. These members of the ‘irresponsible public’ met on the stairs of City Hall, calling for such outrageous demands as, a new system where volunteers assist the shelter in preparing pets for adoption, the recruitment of foster carers to place pets temporarily and the opening of the shelter to potential families looking to adopt.

And these ‘bullying’ and ‘harrassing’ animal advocates then finished their attack on the organisation with “one of the busiest adoption days” ever seen at the shelter.

As you can imagine, the staff at GAWS have been left distressed by this experience. Acting president David Cecil confirmed the society’s lawyers are “ready to act”, with retiring president Ian Walter telling The Age “GAWS’s lawyers believed there were grounds to take out intervention orders against those responsible for the online campaign. This activity is being monitored and if it persists legal action will be taken.”

Council is also taking a tough stance. The city’s general manager, community services, Jenny McMahon said; ”We acknowledge that the situation for homeless animals can improve further, and we are working hard towards this goal.”

The ’situation’ (pets being yelled at before being killed, pets being killed by heartstick, hundreds more pets being killed than being saved) ‘can improve further’. How positively inspirational.

It is a pervasive idea that shelters and pounds who kill pets, are doing so with a compassionate heart and after every other avenue has been exhausted. And it has been the doctrine of these same high kill pounds and shelters to continue to push this notion, afraid that should the truth be exposured – that they kill easily, lazily and unnecessarily – that the backlash would be detrimental to their empires.

However, the truth will no longer stay hidden.

GAWS encouraged the trapping, impoundment and killing of feral cats, claimed the majority of the pets entering the shelter were untreatably aggressive, and killed pets for being non-english speaking. In fact, so high on killing were they, that in 2009/10 they killed 852 dogs and rehomed just 487 (they also ‘misplaced’ 217 dogs), and killed 2,426 cats, rehoming just 546.

But even those claims to shame were nothing compared to the behind the scenes videos that leaked onto the internet last week, showing just how callously the unfortunate ‘death row’ animals were being treated before they were killed.

(More videos here & here)

These videos are a window to what is taking place behind the doors of pounds and shelters across the country. Rather than the ‘good death’ so often defended by killing apologists, we’re given a glimpse into a world where killing is antagonistic and methodical. Not only is it accepted, it is promoted in favour of alternatives to killing. Even when those alternatives are literally beating down the door in the form of foster homes, rescue groups and pet lovers looking to adopt.

Watching these videos is difficult. Their release on the internet caused shockwaves through the animal loving community. However, rather than listen to the pleas of pet lovers to change their ways, the staff involved defended their actions.

While the idea of a ‘good death’ at the hands of compassionate staff is the cornerstone of kill-sheltering, these videos show just how far from the truth that story often is. Around Australia, pounds and shelters who claim to ‘care’ for pets, yet kill them with heartstick, shoot them with guns or send them to university teaching hospitals for ‘non-revival’ surgery. They do so in enormous numbers – hundreds per day – while the strategies exist that would eliminate shelter killing overnight, are simply ignored.

But as in the case of GAWS, the community is the key to change;

‘GAWS Exposed’ community rally

Those who champion life over a quick death in a ’shelter’, are finding their voice. Rather than being an anomaly, they are becoming a powerful movement; taking their message to the streets, where they find extraordinary support in the pet loving public. They are compassionate animal advocates, who find themselves working in uncompassionate surroundings. Or they are tax paying citizens who believe their government dollars should not be funding the wholesale slaughter of pets, in the face of alternatives.

GAWS is the first in a long line of No Kill community protests to come. The times are changing for the shelter animals of Australia.

The killing must stop.

When a … tragedy or random event hits, people look for someone to blame. If there’s no one to blame, sometimes they look for someone to hate, even if it is ultimately self-destructive.
Seth Godin

Last night a four-year-old girl was fatally attacked by a neighbour’s dog in Melbourne.

According to the most detailed report, the dog identified as a ‘pit bull cross’ escaped a neighbour’s property, crossed the street and attacked a woman. As she rushed into the house, the animal followed her, attacking a five year old, four-year-old Ayen Chol and her mother Jaclin. The dog’s owner then arrived and removed the dog. Ambulance teams treated Ayen at the scene but could not revive her. The two other injured were taken to Sunshine Hospital in a stable condition.

In the short time since the news broke, this tragic incident has received extensive media exposure, including nearly 400 results on Google and hundreds of TV new, interviews and editorials.

Despite all the hysteria, few details on the circumstances surrounding the attack are available. Information on how the dog was kept by its thirty year old owner aren’t clear – was the dog a pet, or was it an undersocialised ‘backyard’ dog? Had the dog acted in an aggressive way previously or had it been encouraged to do so? Was it trained and exercised regularly? Was it registered with council? Was it chained? Was it desexed?

This lack of detail hasn’t stopped Graeme Smith adopting his usual position of throwing all pit bulls and their owners, even responsible owners of mixed breed dogs, under the bus;

Lost Dogs Home general manager Graeme Smith has called on the State Government to urgently conduct a review of dangerous dog legislation in the wake of the attack.
…
“Pit bull terriers and pit bull terrier crosses should be declared dangerous and then they would have to be desexed, vaccinated and microchipped and kept in enclosures on their property or inside the house,” he said.
…
“Pit bulls should be treated like swimming pools, they should be fenced off from the rest of the community. They are deadly.”

The truth is the breed and its crosses are already restricted in the state. Owners are required to notify their council, build an enclosure, keep their dogs muzzled and on a lead when off their property and display prescribed warning signs at all entrances to the premises where the dog is kept. Restricted breed dogs born after 2005 are not allowed to be registered and it’s illegal to purchase a restricted breed dog.

But, as has been the experience in each instance where Breed Specific Legislation (BSL) has been enacted, the banning of pit bulls has failed to reduce the number of people injured by dogs. It has certainly failed to save this child.

In addition, thanks to breed bans, responsible pit bull breeders breeding for temperament and health, are now non-existent in Victoria. What is left is a hodgepodge of dogs bred by a catalog of backyard breeders with varying success. And therein lies the rub.

Rather than support the oft repeated ‘fighting dog heritage’ used to justify the culling of pit bulls by supporters of BSL, the spectrum of what a modern ‘pit bull’ actually is has become irreconcilably muddied. Rather than being the domain of ‘tough bad guys’ and an easily identifiable dog breed, literally thousands of families now own a dog which has ‘pit bull’ somewhere in it’s heritage. If we accept that the traits of the pit bull are incompatible with modern dog ownership (I personally don’t, but let’s play devil’s advocate), proponents of BSL need to ask themselves, at what saturation point does being ‘part pitbull’ become a problem for the community? Does a labrador pit bull cross need to be seized from its family and killed? What if that labrador is only 25% pit bull? What about 5%? What if the dog is actually a mastiff crossed labrador but looks like a pit bull?

Meanwhile, the ban does nothing to target dogs which aren’t pit bull types at all, but who are dangerously aggressive.

A pit bull boxer cross

Continuing down the path of restricting pit bulls will only affect those people with loving, trained, pit bull family members. Owners who seek to have a big, unsocialised, aggressive dog will just dump their pit bull and move onto another breed. Or keep them even more hidden from authorities, since having something ‘illegal’ is likely of no real concern to them, or may actually be more desirable.

We need to treat each dog as an individual, simply because they are. Blanket breed restrictions fail to help owners keep happy, healthy dogs. Killing family pets who’ve done nothing wrong, does not make the community safer. And until we look at the real circumstances that lead to dog attacks, we will continue to see horrific, yet preventable tragedies like the death of little Ayen.

See also: You mean you didn’t want dogs gunned down in the street?

The problem with BSL

In WA there is a single main resource for caring for stray cats; The Cat Haven. The RSPCA offers only limited owner surrenders and few councils have powers to impound cats or facilities to do so. Currently if residents want help with cats on their property, the council’s only advice is to offer them a cat trap so they can trap the cat and take it to the vet or the Cat Haven.

Despite the lack of infrastructure supporting the ‘catch and kill’ model, the Cat Haven is said to kill up to 4,000 unwanted cats and kittens each year. A new Bill introduced in July is set to expand council powers and has cat ‘advocates’ excited about its potential;

“If it all goes well, initially we might see a leap in euthanasia, in the first 12 months when people refuse to get their cats sterilised.”
Roz Robinson – Cat Haven

Including compulsory desexing, registration, microchipping, and the requirement for cats to wear tags, the legislation is set to be some of the strongest in the country and obviously follows in the successful footsteps of other legislation of its kind…

Well, actually not so much;

“There have been a number of studies done, one in Mt Isa, in Queensland, another in the ACT and in the US. They show that animals have been dumped and then when the legislation is brought in, that number has increased. The follow on is that there will be more feral animals.”
Alison Driver from the Cat Owners Association of WA

The RSPCA is supporting the new laws, adding that only by making them even more draconian can the full effect of the bulk council cat cull be realised;

The RSPCA’s Tim Mayne also advocates for keeping cats inside the walls of the home and recommended that this should be part of the new Cat Bill.

So what are the council’s attitude to cats?

Belmont chief executive Stuart Cole said the City did not have a policy for capturing stray cats, nor the responsibility or resources to do so.
…
“However the City recommends the use of an approved pest control company to resolve these issues.”

Town of Victoria Park chief executive Arthur Kryon said the Town had no powers to capture or impound cats.

“It is hoped that this will change when the State Government passes the new cat laws,” he said.

Cat groups want councils to have expanded powers to impound and kill cats. Councils want expanded powers to impounded kill cats. Seems no one is advocating for anything other than killing cats in WA.

See also; Don’t pretend WA’s cat laws are about saving cats

Cats out of control in poor suburbs of WA