An Assembly committee recommended yesterday a system of cat registration and impounding of stray cats.
The committee on conservation, heritage and environment said there 30,000 domestic cats in the ACT which killed an estimated 240,000 birds, 480,000 mammals and 240,000 reptiles a year.
The committee acknowledged the statistics might not be completely reliable, but said there was other ample evidence that cats were efficient killers of wildlife and could become feral if encouraged to do so through neglect.
It recommended registration with much lower fees for de-sexed cats; that cats be confined to the registered address; that wandering cats be impounded and owners charged holding a release fees.
The chair of the committee, Independent MLA Michael Moore, said over the past decade or so dog owners had to confine their pets for different reasons. Now the environmental threat was recognised cat owners would have to do the same thing.
He envisaged either collars or an implanted electronic chip for identification (at a cost of about $70). People with stray cats in their gardens could get a trap from the department. The trap was a cage with meat or fish bait with a one-way door which did not harm the cat.
Trapped cats would be taken to the pound unless they carried identification, when they would be taken to the owner, at least for the first couple of times and thereafter to the pound.
Cat-owners would have to build cat-proof fences or design a roofed cat area.
The system worked well and was accepted in Sherbrooke in Victoria’s Dandenongs where the suburbs were close to the bush.
There was no point attempting to control feral cats when they could be replenished so easily by uncontrolled domestic cats.
“”This is a problem with owners, not with cats,” he said. “”Cats were only doing what was natural.”
The cat recommendations were part of a report on feral animals and invasive plants in the ACT. Submissions on the report could be made to the secretary of the committee GPO Box 1020, Canberra, by November 1.
Mr Moore said he recognised that cats and kangaroos were the emotional issues, but the more important conservation issue was invasive plants.
It recommended that nurseries be educated not to stock invasive species such as cotoneaster, English hawthorn, most firethorns and pampas grass.
Rural lessees said invasive plants ruined land at great economic cost. They said also that kangaroos had reached pest proportions.
The committee acknowledged eradication of the plants and animals was impossible. The extent of control depended on land use and the nature of the threat.
Controlling pest animals had additional problems. Species reacted to culling by breeding more, so the size of the population did not decline in proportion to those being killed. Control of reproduction was more effective. For rabbits, warren ripping was more effective than shooting, for example.
The was also a danger than reducing rabbits would result in foxes turning to native species as a substitute prey. Rabbits also provided prey for large native birds.
There were no control methods for various intoduced fish and birds. Poisonings of starlings (referred to elsewhere as rats on wings) had failed.
An anti-coagulant had worked for pigs. Goats were being shot by the “”Judas goat” method, whereby a goat with a radio collar was released which led to other goats.
The committee preferred education but accepted that it would not always work. It was attracted to measures suggested by the Canberra Conservation Council of on-the-spot fines for unrestrained animals or vehicles off-road in sensitive areas and for dumping plants material in non-approved areas.
The committee said feral-animal control methods must be humane, citing the Australian Veterinary Association: “”It is easy to say something is feral and mean that it is criminal and, if it is criminal, it is outside the laws of compassion.”