My claws are out for cats

Iconfess straight away that I’m not a cat person. Our feline friends don’t do much for me and my wife gets jumpy around them.

I did have two chickens for two years but recently they mysteriously moved off to live somewhere else. That’s gratitude for you, given they had a big yard to roam around in and a nice cosy henhouse.

When I was growing up we had a family cat called Silky. She was lazy but always got excited when she dragged dead birds into the lounge. We lived around bush so she was in paradise.

Dad used to get really annoyed. He was no bird lover, he just didn’t appreciate having to pick up all the feathers and bird guts on the floor. To be honest I didn’t pay this much mind. Cats eat birds, dogs chase cats. Anyone who’s ever seen a TV cartoon knows this.

Silky must have caught and destroyed hundreds of birds in her lifetime. And that’s just one cat in one house in one street.

Multiply the damage by the 1.4 million cats nationwide now and we have the new killing fields.

This week the city councils in Wellington and Christchurch were in the news for plans to tackle pet peeves. I applaud the Wellington City Council plans for a fatwa on felines by limiting the numbers of cats to three per household.

In Christchurch there’s a proposed bylaw requiring dogs to be leashed on, and within one metre of, shared pathways through Hagley Park. Sensible stuff too.

I ask you – who needs more than one cat (if indeed any)? I’ve always thought people hoarding too many cats were slightly odd. If not mad. And Wellingtonians like the idea with 77 per cent supporting the cat limit in a recent survey.

Now there’s talk of mandatory micro-chipping too. That may be far too hard to administer. And sensibly the council appears to be steering away from that.

I say all these proposed rules are common sense. There. I said it. I think I agree with Gareth Morgan.

Dog owners already face these rules so why shouldn’t the owners of cats? Why have cats got a free pass for so long? The game’s up felines.

Cats destroy bird life. They’re mini tigers. They’re hunters and natural born predators. They trespass all over other people’s properties. And they look at you with annoying eyes and try to lie on you all the time.

Apparently almost half of cat owners have two of them. We have no idea how many people own multiple cats. Cat breeders won’t be targeted here – cat hoarders will.

And if you’re a responsible multiple cat owner, that has neutered or spayed your litter, then it’s likely you’ll get council permission to keep them all.

This is about targeting the irresponsible hoarder, not the responsible cat owner.

But I suspect the curfew idea is probably a step too far. The council floated a 7pm-7am curfew – it sounds good but in reality who will enforce it? Don’t expect to see the cat police out on the streets at night enforcing it.

And of course there’s Zealandia, the wildlife sanctuary in Karori. It’s a huge investment and the last thing it needs is a cat explosion nearby. I’d go a step further and say anyone within a 1-2km radius of the perimeter fence can’t own a

Multiply the damage by the 1.4 million cats nationwide now and we have the new killing fields.

cat. These birds fly in and out of the sanctuary. Many don’t return. We know who the culprits are.

Wellington councillor Iona Pannett has done the right thing by pushing this debate through council. And she’s been supported by sane voices, the SPCA and Kevin Hackwell from Forest & Bird.

We all face rules and regulations in life whether we like it or not. Humans, dogs, roosters, chickens – there’s a rule for everyone and everything. Now cats. And it’s about time.

That said, not all animal rules are being tightened.

Your goat will no longer need to be registered. I’m not kidding.