CAT CONTROL
THE plan by the Greens to lock up your cat and throw away the key has the potential to divide communities. What other places have these laws? House cats are only part of the problem. There are other things. The spotted tail quoll, a native and a very nice little animal that we must look after, is a vicious killer and kills for sport. It will wipe out a chook pen in one attack, it takes the throats out and leaves them and does not stop until they are all dead. I wonder what they are killing when there are no chooks around.
The butcherbird is another that takes no prisoners and possibly the starling does more damage to native birds than the house cat. It outnumbers natives thousands to one. It bullies small native birds, takes nest sites and breeds more than once a year. The house cat gets some of these and I’ve seen the duckhawk rip them out of the sky. Cats are not such a problem in rural areas, spotlight shooters keep them down and to those who don’t want a cat on their land or to pass through their land.
I may have a solution, fence them out. When farmers have a vermin problem, they don’t say lock up the vermin, they fence it out at their expense. Some vineyards net the birds out, mainly starlings. Michael Gordon
Swansea be fines and seizure of cats for noncompliance. Cats by law are allowed to roam. An owner has no legal liability for damage.
Dog and farm animal owners have to contain to their property and are liable for damage. The cat centre informed me it would not take a trapped cat if you knew who owned the cat. Can the minister please inform me where I am to deliver a cat. Could it be Parliament House.
Rob O’Byrne
Howrah