Cat bylaw would help with stray problem
Vet Brendan Hickman jokes that tighter rules around cat control might hurt his bottom line, but he’s okay with that.
“We regularly see cats that have been injured by strays that roam around hunting for food and going into other cats’ territories,” says Hickman, who manages Nelson Vets, which has offices in Nelson and Stoke.
He believed these types of injuries would reduce drastically under a proposed bylaw that would see tighter control over cat ownership.
The bylaw, currently under consideration by Nelson City Council, would make it compulsory to microchip and desex
your cats. Tasman District Council is also working on a similar rule.
Since 2018, a handful of councils around the country have introduced similar rules, including Wellington, Palmerston North and Selwyn District.
Hickman said the Nelson-Tasman region currently wrestled with a “massive amount” of unwanted cats.
Some survive by adopting households where people feed them.
“People will say, it’s not my cat: I see it every day, it comes into my house and sits on my knee, it has kittens every now and again, but it’s not my cat.”
Under new rules, these cats could be desexed and given proper homes, where they would be cared for.
“You often see cats that look like they could be stray that have had kittens, but you don’t know if it has an owner so you can’t do anything about it.”
The tide of unwanted cats places vet clinics and the SPCA under a great deal of pressure, Hickman said.
“If microchipping is introduced, it will be easier for vets and the SPCA to help cats reunite with their owners, or be rehomed.”
Hickman said similar bylaws in other parts of Aotearoa have been rolled out in a gentle way, with education and microchipping help at the forefront.
“It’s not like all of a sudden councils are going to go out and trap every cat. That’s not the case. No one’s trying to do anything in a hurry, we’re just trying to turn the tide.”