Greater Dandenong council has adopted a night curfew for local cats
It just got a whole lot tougher being a cat in Greater Dandenong, with the council bringing in a curfew — and it could get even tougher.
South East
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It just got tougher being cat in Melbourne’s southeastern suburbs with a council’s imposing a “dawn to dusk” curfew — and a 24-hour lockout has not been ruled out.
Greater Dandenong City Council became the latest Victorian council to add a curfew to its cat management strategy plan in a bid to reduce euthanasia rates and increase the amount of felines rehomed.
Owners will have to keep their cats on their property between sunset and sunrise.
Trespassing and wandering cats made up 46 six per cent of cat-related complaints to the council in the past 12 months, with 57 per cent of respondents out of 356 people surveyed supporting a curfew in Greater Dandenong.
The council said the curfew would be “monitored for its effectiveness” for two years “with a view to extending that to a 24/7 curfew if deemed necessary at that time”.
Despite some resistance from locals who voiced concerns about a potential 24-hour curfew at Monday’s council meeting, director of city planning Jody Bosman said the curfew only made up a “small part” of the overall cat strategy that was introduced last year.
“The cat curfew is not the strategy, it is just an element,” he said.
“The proposed cat curfew is a small part of a suite contained in the strategy and is not the first resort. It is a dusk-to-dawn curfew, it is not a 24 hour curfew. We will assess its effectiveness and then whereafter consider whether we keep it in place or consider a 24 hour.
“The curfew is part of a broader and more comprehensive plan of action set out in our adopted cat management strategy which goes further than any other municipality”.
Among those speaking against a potential 24 hour curfew was Lawyers for Animals president Nichola Donovan, who has asked council to consider using scientific methods to controlling the cat population.
“There are two core scientific phenomena applicable … territoriality and reproductive rebound,” she said.
“Territoriality causes cats to guard territory, including all potential food from other cats. Fully fed and desexed pet cats have far less motivation to kill wildlife than fertile stray cats.
“Reproductive rebound is the natural phenomenon whereby fertile stray cats increase the population when available food increases.
“A 24 hour curfew leaves the territory and food including wildlife previously guarded by pet cats vacant for fertile stray cats with more territory to hunt, more food scraps and direct feed available … stray cats will bare more kittens more often and more of those kittens will survive to breed”.
Two years ago neighbouring municipality Knox City Council introduced a 24 hour cat curfew to the anger of many residents.
In addition to imposing a curfew, Mr Bosman said the council was focused on driving a no fee registration and subsidising desexing.
The council’s cat management strategy also included expanding its foster care network and streamlined registration processes which includes a no-fee first time registration.
