This is a summary of one view that was presented to the NSW Inquiry Management of Cat Populations. During the hearing 1 April 2025, Stephanie Bates Westie Cat Support Services raised her concerns including the impact of groups, such as Invasive Species and the Threatened Species Commissioner that provide overstated estimates and significant negative consequences of cats which are published in a trail of repeated misinformation, leading to cruelty to cats.
We provide summaries and links to the full documents.
- Summary of WCSS concerns raised at the hearing 1 April 2025
- WCSS Answers to Questions On Notice
- Transcript of Hearing 1 April 2025
Summary of WCSS concerns raised at the hearing 1 April 2025
Stephanie Bates’ Westie Cat Support Services opening statement, included the following highlighted views (refer to a copy of the hearing transcript in this blog).
“I think there need to be some amendments to do with community members taking it upon themselves to trap cats—whether owned or unowned—and the investigation of this practice, the penalties for this practice and who is responsible for monitoring this practice. Is it the RSPCA cruelty inspectors? Is it a council animal ranger? Who is it? Is it an AWL inspector? The role and powers of the council need to be clearly defined and ascertained. My approach generally to this inquiry is coming from an animal welfare perspective, not necessarily threatened species protection in urban areas—or indeed other species protection in other areas. I also think that there’s a paucity of research on domestic and urban cats—owned, unowned and community—in urban areas. Even in the threat abatement plan, it’s stated that they’re talking about non-urban cats, yet they’re trying to extrapolate the data for urban cats and talk about urban cats in the same sentence, pretty much.
It’s quite ridiculous. We do need more solid, substantive and well-done research on urban cats. At the moment, it’s not really there. There’s a lot of crazy statistics put out there. The ANU, in 2023, stated that roaming pet cats kill 66 million native animals each year in Sydney. I would question that. There’s also not very much talk about what species are actually killing and exactly how many. A lot of their information is based on anecdotal reports from wildlife organisations. However, the anecdotal evidence given by people who actually rescue and TNR cats, for some bizarre reason, is never taken into account. That’s probably because they don’t even talk to us, so it’s great to have this investigation and this Committee.”
WCSS views, concerns and recommendations during the hearing session included the following.
“Certainly, particular lobby groups, like the Invasive Species Council, are very official, such as the Threatened Species Commissioner, have been heavily involved in lobbying, propagandising and, especially the Invasive Special Council, seeking funding. A lot of their propagandising is done on social media and a lot of it, I think, is having an actual negative impact on the safety of cats. I think there’s definitely an increase in demonisation.”
“With the mandatory containment, people think they’ve got a right, “Oh, this cat’s not on their property. They’re not contained. Good. I’m going to trap this cat and then I’m going to do what I like with this cat. I’m going to dump them in a suburb that’s 10 suburbs away. I’m going to kill them, or I’m going to take them to the pound, or I’m going to ring the ranger and they’re going to be taken to the pound”—in some sort of utopic nirvana of what needs to be done.”
“The problem with that is most of them don’t even contact the council rangers or the pounds about these cats. It would be interesting to correlate statistics of cat cruelty with what was going on in those councils—for example, the Yarra council. Having said that, there is a lot of animal cruelty that the RSPCA or the AWL
inspectorate will not investigate, whether it’s about resource allocation or the probability of being able to prosecute. I’m not sure, but I’d be very interested to see. Certainly anecdotally, and from TNRers’ and rescuers’ experiences on the ground, the amount of cat abuse has increased in the last two to three years in what we’re seeing on the streets and on private properties.”
Towards the end of the hearing session, WCSS provided the following.
“My vision is that colonies will always exist. I think it’s incredibly unrealistic to suggest that they won’t, or that they shouldn’t exist, because you’re always going to have people in society that do not desex their cats, do not microchip their cats, dump their cats, people that are cruel to cats and dump owned or otherwise cats. Like I said in my submission, TNR is but one management strategy to deal with a public and private animal issue. You’ve got two options. You either kill the lot of them, which is what Professor Sarah Legge and others suggest, or you start doing TNR and you have responsible colonies as a way to humanely manage. Cats on the streets are always going to exist, particularly in certain suburbs, and to suggest otherwise is ridiculous. You can try to mass cull them, but you’re still going to have more cats emerging, because people will still do irresponsible things. I also think the education of the public is limited. You can educate till the cows come home with focused education about responsible pet ownership, but you will still have people being irresponsible.”
WCSS Answers to Questions On Notice
At the end of the hearing session, the following was raised with WCSS.
“Ms SUE HIGGINSON: Can I ask one last thing on notice? Ms Bates, you made a number of statements about your understanding and observation that the Invasive Species Council and its propaganda—I think you referred to it as propaganda—is responsible for the increase in cruelty to animals. If you could provide the Committee any evidence or anything to suggest that’s the case, that would be of assistance.”
WCSS provided a document after the hearings.
It is noted that in the examples of evidence provided, the Inquiry committee has heavily redacted the specific words in the following item:
The Guardian Nov 2023 re cats from Australian Wildlife Conservancy Trevor Bauer & Biodiversity Council ANU Sarah Legge media item: “From beloved pet to biodiversity villain: what now for Australia’s cats?”
In the lead up to the end of consultation of the draft Threat Abatement Plan, there were several articles in media, published it appears to promote all cats as “villains” and which proposed just two categories being pet (owned) and feral cats.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/nov/12/from-beloved-pet-to-biodiversity-villain-what-now-for-australias-cats
LRC 