A case against a Sunbury man whose three dogs were accused of roaming and killing four chihuahuas and a maltese cross has been adjourned until August 17. Scott Chapman (whose appearance on A Current Affair can be seen here), had pleaded guilty to allowing his dogs to roam and kill, and Hume Council have applied for the three staffordshire crosses (Kaos, Phantom and Bean Bag) to be destroyed.

What is interesting about this case, is how human morality has been projected onto the animals involved. There is no doubt, the effect on the owner of the dogs who were killed in the attack would have been catastrophic. However, the job of the law and of animal management is to be a neutral party, looking for failures in the system that can be remedied and taking the minimum action needed to avoid the situation happening again. Instead we have anthropomorphism at its finest; dogs being held up as ‘victims’, other dogs being held up as ‘perpetrators’ and the real causes and solutions being lost in the fray.

The morality of breed

Despite the fact the dogs have been described by authorities as ’staffordshire crosses’, the Lost Dogs Home used the attack as a chance to continue their campaign against pit bulls. Though the dogs were known as dog pound “frequent flyers” and the owner has since been able to get another staffy, authorities fixated on the (incorrect) ‘breed’ as the issue.

An effective animal management system would take the opportunity to examine the failure of early intervention strategies from keeping these ‘repeat offender’ dogs from eventually getting themselves into serious trouble. Any group of large breed dogs roaming about is dangerous. However, just as we wouldn’t look to ban large breed dogs, neither does it make sense to ban an entire breed of dog, when it was the owner’s behaviour at the core of the problem.

Any owner who repeatedly fails to protect their dogs and keep them from harassing the community presents a public danger. This can be remedied by targeting those owners who do the wrong thing. By contrast breed-specific laws target dogs who’ve never caused a problem in the community, seizing them from loving owners and killing them for being the ‘wrong’ breed, and is simply an unethical, ineffective, waste of resources.

The morality of punishment

Hume City Council have applied to kill the dogs, as the owner failed to meet the deadline to build a suitable enclosure to contain them. In short – Hume City Council has applied to kill the dogs because their owner is a loser jerk.

This is simply revenge. A dog gets no say in whether they’re owned by a great owner who loves them for a lifetime, or someone who needs to be banned from owning pets altogether. But as anyone in rescue knows, a crappy owner does not immediately, a ‘bad’ dog make. Most dogs, once in compassionate hands will blossom.

These dogs don’t deserve to die because their owner let them down, once in letting them roam and then again in not complying with the directions that could have saved their lives. When dishing out ‘punishment’ we must make sure that the innocent animals aren’t dealt the retribution that should be directed at their negligent owners.

The morality of animal instincts

The dogs were saved from death row previously, when the court ruled there was insufficient DNA evidence to conclude which dog/s carried out the attack. The determination then, that these dogs should be killed as the perpetrators of a crime, raises an interesting question; if we’re going to give these animals the very human attribute of ‘evil killers’ do they also deserve the human protection of ‘innocent until proven guilty’? If we don’t know whether all of the dogs were involved, how do we know know all of them should be killed under the charge?

But this waxing lyrical about dogs who kill other animals as being beyond redemption, completely ignores the nature of dog behaviour, which is that it is circumstantial, fallible and able to be manipulated. The likelihood of a unsupervised pack of three dogs meeting a pack of five dogs, without injury is low, and with the enormous difference in size between the animals the tiny dogs stood little chance of surviving. If it were to happen in the wild we would consider it a territorial dispute. While terribly tragic, it’s certainly not ‘evil’.

Accepting dogs as dogs, faults and all

While there is no doubt that the owner of these dogs is negligent, are the dogs dangerous? Without a professional and unbiased behaviour assessment, we’ll never know. If they are untreatably aggressive, then they should be destroyed for public safety. But they aren’t criminals and we shouldn’t feel a moral obligation to kill them. We should instead recognise that they are animals, who do what animals do – and at the very least they deserve a fair evaluation and possibly a chance at a better life with a better owner.

… that cats should be indoors, that cats should be registered and desexed by law and that free-roaming cats need to be trapped for their own good; then you can’t say ‘it’s not our job’ when they ask you for help.

Sad abandoned cats cause concerns at Quakers Hill

(Cat pic) It’s hard to imagine that a face like this lives off discarded food scavenged from rubbish bins. Sadly, this is the reality for dozens of stray cats who have sought refuge around the Parkway Rd McDonald’s and the Caltex Service Station at Quakers Hill.

Resident Sarah King says Blacktown City Council and the RSPCA seemed disinclined to help so she has launched a petition urging the council to take action against the growing feral cat population.

Ms King and a group of friends plan to trap as many cats as they can and petition the council to find them new homes or destroy the animals humanely.

She said businesses, the council and the RSPCA were caught up in a game of “finger pointing”.

“The response has been pretty appalling, but something needs to be done,” Ms King said. “These cats are starving, carrying disease and living a … horrible life. They keep breeding and it’s getting worse.”

Driving through the area the Advocate saw cats in bins, kittens hiding in the hedges – even remains on the side of Parkway Rd and a carcass in a garden bed.

McDonald’s hired a private firm to remove kittens and adults but numbers are again getting out of hand and they don’t believe it’s their sole responsibility.

[...]
Two RSPCA spokeswomen told the Advocate the cats were not their responsibility and “economic pressure” prevented them taking further action.

Ms King has now lodged a formal complaint with Blacktown City Council who declined the opportunity to comment when contacted by the Advocate.

 

Fur flies over inaction on cats

Animal lover Chris Lyall says a cat and her four kittens could be buried alive if the bulldozing of four derelict houses on Woodland St, Balgowlah, continues.

The Manly resident said the family of strays has taken refuge under one of the houses with all efforts to rescue them so far unsuccessful.

[...]
Hoping for action to delay the demolition, Mr Lyall contacted Manly Council but claims they are yet to act.

Manly Council general manager Henry Wong said the council was aware of the situation but it was the RSPCA or other animal welfare organisations that were the appropriate bodies to assist with the matter.

The cats’ plight, however, has created confusion, with the RSPCA indicating that the welfare of the mother and her kittens was the council’s responsibility under the Companion Animals Act.

Mr Lyall said the lack of help was frustrating.

[...]
Ellen McGinness, from the Cat Protection Society, said it appeared the issue was being palmed off.

“It should be the council’s responsibility – the RSPCA only deal with owned cats. There is a huge problem with councils not taking responsibility.”

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.

You need to join forces with other rescue groups and hold a fee-free adoption event.

I know, right – but, hear me out.

Unfortunately, many non-profit organizations often seem to believe that there is a limited pie of resources out there and, therefore, they are in direct competition with other humane groups in the community. This is really more a matter of perception than reality. Animal lovers are amazingly generous, especially when they feel that groups are working together to get an important job done. And our community, animal groups and the general public have all pulled together to create one of the safest places in the country for homeless pets.

Nevada Humane Society, No Kill Shelter since 2007

When 41 shelters and rescue groups across Alameda and Contra Costa Counties got together for the Maddies Matchmaker Adoptathon, offering would be adopters free pet adoption, they did so with the aim of emptying their shelters.

Shelters and rescue groups screened applicants as per their usual guidelines and used extended shelter trading hours, as well as PETCO, PetSmart and Pet Food Express stores to showcase their animals. The result? An overwhelming success;

Take a moment to consider that result – what would happen in your community if 1,500 pets were rehomed in a single weekend?

By co-oincidence, on the same weekend, New Zealand SPCA, offered a free-feline Friday. The Wellington, Wairarapa, Newtown, Waikanae, Levin and Masterton offered cats to the public with a waived fee over the weekend.

Their experience?

The Masterton office was flooded with prospective owners on Friday morning, Wairarapa SPCA manager Val Ball said.

Within two hours of opening more than 20 people had called in for free felines and seven cats had been adopted.

”There have been more people than cats here this morning, we’ve been overrun,” she said.

There had been 30 cats rehomed out of the Masterton centre by Friday afternoon and 150 animals given away in their Wellington offices.

I’ve often argued that we should be increasing the value of our rescue pets, by promoting them as ‘better than free’ and I still believe that is true. Many in the community are turned off by ‘free’ – to them it says ‘faulty’, ‘common’ or ‘things nobody wants’ – which is why FTGH ads are usually so ineffective in attracting genuine adopters. I don’t want a free pet – I want a great pet. I’ll just pay for one thanks…

But these promotions are different. ‘Free’ is a talking point. ‘Free’ builds a buzz. ‘Free’ is a cue that tells you it’s a limited time only offer. Groups getting together and offering ‘free adoption weekends’ gets people excited about lots of pets to choose from and promises a fun, festival atmosphere.

Since everyone is getting their pet free that weekend, it doesn’t come with the same ’stigma’ usually associated with a free-rescue pet. And with studies showing no difference in attachment levels between pets where the owner paid a fee – or didn’t – there is no good reason to kill pets ‘for lack of homes’, rather than coordinate your own BIG FREE ADOPTION WEEKEND!

It might just save a few hundred lives.

Since hubby and I are having a ‘dry’ June and going to the pub for lunch was out, we spent Saturday walking through the city. Along with bags of junk (the sales are on) and some retro fabric, a secondhand copy of Tim Low’s 2001 book ‘Feral Future’ jumped off the shelf and into my possession.

Now, I wanted to learn more about feral animals but I fully expected Feral Future to be frustrating anti-cat reading. But au contraire! It’s an absolute cracker, taking what could be a pretty dry topic and turning it into ‘the astounding history of Australia’ worthy of any Ripley’s Believe it or Not.

The book starts with a seriously interesting premise;

World ecology is now locked onto the same trajectory as popular culture. Just as American pop music and blue jeans, burgers and Coke have displaced indigenous cultures and foods in every land, so too are vigorous exotic invaders overwhelming native species and natural habitats. Some biologists warn of a ‘McDonaldization’ of work ecology. The earth is hurtling towards a one world culture and (maybe) a one world ecosystem.

But what’s most fascinating in our ‘native loving’ society is that, for the most part, rather than these organisims ’sneaking in’, we’ve have been and continue to be complicit in bringing the non-native plants and animals to Australia.

The long list of ferals – they’re not what you think!

Rabbits are decended from domestic livestock gone wild and are just one of thosuands of purposely introduced ‘ferals’. Chickens, pigs, cabbages, wheat, apples, lemons, camels, rye, coffee, sheep, goats, radishes, perch, turnips, onions, salmon, red deer, carp peas, beans, strawberries, horses, coconut, trout, sisal, tea, figs, chillies, blackberries, cattle, ‘double gee’, olives, fennel, liquorice, grapes, buffalo, mango, donkey, banana, oats, pistacho, bream, and cashew were all brought in to feed people. Most of these have escaped and invaded forests and woodlands, replacing native species and forever changing the makeup of our natural environment.

Then there where the ’stowaways’ – diseases and parasites brought on plants and animals; blight, fleas, mites, snails, weed burrs, spiders, algae, kelp, grasshoppers, slaters, fungus, weevils, cockroaches, beetles, moths, flies, mosquitos, wasps, bees, worms and rats and mice.

The ones we introduced either because we were homesick, or to help farmers; sparrows, Indian mynas, buffel grass, prickly pear, boxthorn, cotton, mosquito fish, cane toads, pasture grasses and foxes.

And those we brought because we liked having beautiful gardens; thistles, hemlock, Paterson’s curse, water hyacinth, lantana, privet, camphor laurel, lavender, holly, cats claw, rubber vine, lawn grass and St John’s Wort.

Or to keep as pets; guppies, mystery snails, goldfish, cichlids, platies, swordtails, finches and dozens of water plants. Again, all have ‘gone feral’ and are now living wild.

Along with these examples is a chapter on how, having not learned anything from our history of unsuccessful introductions, we still bring in new pasture plants, garden plants and internationally bred pets into Australia every day.

So where do cats fit?

So, half way through the book and there’s been barely a peep about ‘feral cats’. But rest assured, they get their own chapter and here’s where it gets really interesting, because the chapter is entitled; Cats – Scoundrels or Scapegoats?

Suburban cats, because they dispatch lots of birds, are often condemned as major killers, second only to their feral kin in the bush. But the evidence is not convincing. Cats kill millions of birds in gardens, true enough, but ecologically there is nothing wrong with this – predation is a fact of life. Birds are killed in forests, too, by falcons, owls, quolls, dingoes, snakes, goannas, even spiders. Pet pussies are simply the urban equivalent of these killers. Hunting by pet cats only becomes a worry if the death rate exceeds their birthrate. By and large, this doesn’t seem to be the case. The birds caught by cats are usually abundant species that thrive on development. Some of them – including willie wagtails, crested pigeons, and magpie larks – are probably faring better today than ever before.

This is certainly true of the common garden lizards that cats like to kill. Some studies show that leafy suburbs actually support more birds than intact forests, despite all the cats, because gardens planted with berries and nectar- rich flowers produce more food.

If any species is threatening bird in suburbia it is probably the pied currawong, a vicious native bird that raids nests and devours chicks and eggs. Native noisy miners also make mischief by driving away smaller birds.

But what about true free-roaming cats?

Feral cats in the bush however, can be a serious problem, though probably not to birds, which they seldom eat. Studies of their diet have revealed what cartoonists have always known; cats prefer rats, mice and other mammals. Rabbits are often their staple diet; cats may be helping the ecology by keeping bunny numbers down.

Rabbits may have helped wipe our small outback wallabies and bandicoots by taking their food and grazing down their cover. They are possibly the worst of all our pests because of the extrodinary numbers they can achieve.

Black rats are rarely portrayed as killers, but as destroyers of island life they may rank higher than cats. On Lord Howe island they knocked off five bird species, and on Christmas Island they helped exterminate Maclear’s rat, a unique native rodent. They reached the island in 1899 by hiding in hay, and ten years later no Maclear’s rats remained. Trout, too have driven several species close to extinction, an achievement that cats, on hard evidence, cannot match.

Do cats deserve all the attention?

Many conservationists treat cats as if they were our number one pest, but I believe foxes, rabbits, pigs, toads, trout and some weeds all pose a greater menace. Goats, donkeys, carp, mosquito fish, Pacific sea stars, green crabs, honeybees, bumblebees, and Amazonian earth worms concern me a great deal too. And worse than any of these is probably phytophthora, the dreaded fungal disease, along with the chytrid fungus killing our frogs. By saying this I don’t wish to exonerate cats, simply to broaden the debate.

Instead of heedlessly angering cat owners by vilifying their pets, we might look around us at all the other pests receiving less attention.

(highlighting mine)

No matter how many times the media shows an angry cat photo in defence of the latest cat cull (have you noticed the parallel to the media’s representation of pit bulls?), they are just one, amongst many animals and plants that are changing our landscape.

Cattle and sheep have probably contributed more to extinctions than foxes or rats.

As one university biologist complained to me, those people who rant about the cat should add ‘tle’ to the name and pursue a worthier rogue.

But we’re unlikely to see an anti-farming movement in Australia, nor an anti-aquarium pets, nor an anti-’flowers in the garden movement’; so it seems unfair to single out cats when we’ve no interest in solving any of the other issues that would halt the ‘Mcdonaldization’ Low speaks of in his book.

Arrogant acts

It is also not as simple as we would like, to just ‘turn back the clock’ and eliminate ferals and weeds.

In the feral future, natives and exotics will become more and more interdependent.

Low goes on to describe how non-natives and natives are now engaged in complex life-sustaining relationships. Marram grasslands feed wombats, camphor laurel forests sustain vast flocks of fruit pigeons and long-billed and western corellas live supported by farmland. The rare southern brown bandicoots use blackberry brambles as protection against foxes and the nearly extinct Norfolk Island Parrot lives almost entirely upon olives and cherry guava. Rabbits, black rats and mice now sustain a large proportion of birds of prey and in some places young rabbits make up 60 to 90% of the diet of local eagles, harriers, kites and falcons. House mice make up as much as 97% of the diet of barn owls, while in the cities, the endangered peregine falcons are growing plump on street pigeons.

In short, just like all the other animals and plants in Australia, a new balance has been created with each participant bringing positives and negatives to the evolving ecology. To arbitrarily decide that one established organism is not worthy of their position, is just as arrogant human mistake, as the one the first settlers made when they introduced new animals and plants to Australia.

With what we know about cats in Australia and modern management techniques, the idea that we’re still championing the catch and kill techniques that we have been using since the 70’s is inexcusable.

The case for humane cat management

The modern cat care approach should be thus – keeping pet cats inside either part or all of the time, is a seriously good idea and should be encouraged for both cat welfare and environmental reasons. But this constant drive by the media, cat welfare groups and cat haters to have them exterminated from the suburbs is both undeserved and cruel.

Programs which help those cats already living in the environment, keep others from winding up abandoned and support owners to make responsible pet care decisions are the key to effective cat management in Australia.

Sometimes comments are so interesting, they deserve a blog of their own.

Jax says: 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.

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. We have changed our environment in a way that works for some animals, has been disastrous for others.

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 when more cat move in, trap another seven soon after, and another seven soon after that… 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 their lives 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’.

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 – the overwhelming majority of cats entering shelters have never had owners. Blaming cat owners of WA (of which 88% have desexed animals), 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.

The government’s feral pest advisory group – the one who is given millions to dream up new toxins and trapping techniques, they say eradication in Australia is unrealistic. We have to move beyond thinking that cats live wild because the government hasn’t brought in a law, or because people are irresponsible, or because we just haven’t trapped enough yet. The science says we will always have cats living in self-sustaining wild populations in Australia. Now we know that – what else can we do?

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 other 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.

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)

I’ve written about mandatory desexing many times before, but given I’m from WA I’m going to go over it for my local peeps.

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.