Extent of sick and homeless cats comes as surprise

A group set up to tackle Gore’s ‘‘prowling pussy’’ problem has been surprised by how many people have reached out to raise issues with feral and stray cats.

The Cat Management Working Party consisted of Gore district councillors Glenys Dickson (chair), Cliff Bolger and Neville Phillips.

Four community representatives and a representative from the Hokonui Rū nanga will also be part of the working party.

‘‘To be perfectly honest I didn’t know there was such a problem, or how bad or widespread the problem was with stray and feral cats until speaking with these community people that joined our group,’’ Dickson said.

According to the council, Gore has colonies of feral cats, and most of the animals are in poor health. Many are believed to be either dumped or lost pets.

Animal welfare is a major issue among them. Hungry strays resort to eating slugs, which carry lungworm larvae. As a result, many strays have lungworm, which can cause severe respiratory disease.

The working group was formed in March after a council meeting where councillor Doug Grant said he was concerned about the district’s ‘‘prowling pussy problem’’ and suggested the number of cats a person could own should be addressed.

‘‘We had a council meeting regarding our animals by-law in the urban areas and from that we discovered that we had policies around every animal you could think of in the township apart from cats,’’ Dickson said.

‘‘We thought it would be good to set up a cat management team just to see really what the extent of the problem was.’’

The working party wants to hear from the community about what issues they are having with cats and it will try to find solutions.

Dickson said the council had looked into what policies the Invercargill City Council and the Southland District Council had in place in terms of cats being predators, but said there was not much.

‘‘I think cats are an issue in every district actually . . . there are eight different councils that are calling for central government to provide a policy statement on cats,’’ she said.

Four councils have introduced mandatory microchipping and desexing of cats, and there are calls for central government to make nationwide rules around regulating cats.