Wendy Tuohy: Cat curfew and fines should be introduced across Victoria
MONASH Council’s move to introduce a cat curfewcould be brought in across Victoria and have hefty fines attached for repeated noncompliance, writes Wendy Tuohy.
Wendy Tuohy
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MONASH Council’s great move to introduce a cat curfewcould be brought in across Victoria and have hefty fines attached for repeated noncompliance.
Letting your cat roam free around roads is not responsible pet ownership. It is tantamount to confessing you don’t really love your pet anyway.
A curfew with a strong financial disincentive — fines for owners who continually let cats out at night — is the most practical way to stop slaughter of native fauna on a grand scale, and to prevent harm to loved cats.
Research by a team of experts from Charles Darwin University, the ANU and Deakin found in October that cats kill about a million birds a day in Australia.
The researchers, including two professors, broke down 100 studies of cat population, hunting rates and distribution and found domestic cats responsible for killing about 105 million birds a year while feral cats kill 272 million birds.
And it is not just your responsibility to the environment to keep your moggy contained to your yard (something estimated by South Oakleigh Wildlife Shelter manager Michele Phillips to cost less than $200 in barriers) — its also your duty to your cat.
The biggest causes of cat trauma are being hit on the road or being attacked by a dog or another cat.
If you still think it is humane to let the cat loose unsupervised, particularly to hunt at night, consider nearly 17,400 unclaimed cats were put down by just one rescue agency, the RSPCA, in 2015-16 alone.
Cats are exponential breeders; capable of having as many as five litters a year at between one to eight kittens (an average litter figure often quoted is five kittens).
I have a cat and adore her but she only goes outside in daylight hours, supervised, and on a body-harness lead long enough to let her scratch about in the garden beds.
We watch her in the garden (directly outside the kitchen/family room) to ensure the lead doesn’t get snagged.
Sure she looks cross when she’s eyeing off the fence and realises the lead won’t allow her to jump over it, but she gets plenty of stimulation for kids playing with her and from climbing inside the house.
Australia’s birds and mammals are unique in the world and a source of great pride, yet we already have the world’s worst extinction rate for native species (28 species, mainly marsupials, gone for good since Europeans arrived).
No doubt we love our cats but it’s time we paid the cost, upfront, of the damage they do if we don’t keep our side of the pet-ownership bargain.
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