The Dark Side of Mandatory Cat Confinement

However, there are several issues with mandating cat confienment/ containment i.e. including requirements in legislation. Cat enclosures may involve significant costs for cat owners, difficult to erect due to other resident complaints, and difficult and costly for a council to enforce.  

We also see the dark side, which may include to incite or encourage violence to cats.

Many councils are aware that a number of owned cats are “relocated” to different suburbs, (sometimes over 20km from their homes).

Or are surrendered to the council pound of their local government area or another local government area.  

This is also commented on Face Book (FB) pages (not included in this post).

Do any councils track and report on these actions?

• Very few (if any) councils track or report on deaths of cat unless the cat is surrendered to the pound.

• We are not aware if the NSW government reports on owned cats who disappear.  Some owners may (not mandatory) report their cats as lost on the NSW Pet Registry.

There has been “anecdotal” comments on social media in relation to these actions.

ROAMING CATS BEING ATTACKED OR KILLED

Applying mandatory cat confinement legislation is likely to encourage an increase in these actions by cat haters on the alleged grounds that all roaming cats are ‘illegal’.

In our images are several examples of cats being, or threatened to be, harmed or killed, as sourced from various Facebook pages.

In the past years many of the comments have been more “blunt”. 

The comments that have been copied here, have been determined to pass social media standards.

If some cat haters already consider any roaming cat feral or warranting themselves taking action against all roaming cats…

then what will be the reactions/ actions if mandatory cat confinement is implemented?