Why Can You Keep Four Pets, But Face Council Enforcement for Keeping Three?
Redland City Council's pet ownership restrictions deserve urgent public scrutiny.

Under the ordinary rules, a household can keep two cats and two dogs — four animals in total — without additional approval.

Yet a household with three cats and no dogs, or three dogs and no cats, needs special approval.

Four animals can be permitted. Three animals can trigger enforcement.

Where is the fairness in that distinction when the animals are healthy, properly cared for, securely contained and causing no nuisance?

This is not merely a theoretical concern.

On Russell Island, five desexed rescue cats are living in a fully enclosed home and backyard. These animals have survived abandonment, trauma and upheaval. They have been given a secure and caring home.

Nevertheless, Redland City Council has directed that their number be reduced.

Council's own correspondence acknowledges the animals' difficult circumstances and the challenges involved in rehoming them.

Yet the requirement to remove some of the cats remains.

The consequences of enforcement can be serious. Council's animal-management framework includes powers relating to seizure and impoundment and, in specified circumstances, destruction of animals. Entry under a warrant may also be authorised where the relevant legal requirements are satisfied.

Council has not ordered the euthanasia of these five cats, and removal does not automatically lead to euthanasia. But their difficult rehoming prospects raise genuine concerns about what could happen if they are displaced.

Why should a numerical limit take precedence over the welfare of animals that are already safe and properly cared for?

We, the undersigned, call upon Redland City Council, its elected representatives and Chief Executive Officer Louise Rusan to take immediate steps towards abolishing the general two-cat and two-dog numerical limits.

We seek an animal-management system that addresses actual problems: neglect, roaming animals, attacks, nuisance, unsafe conditions and threats to wildlife.

We also call for a review of enforcement involving the five rescued cats on Russell Island, clear safeguards against unnecessary removal, and publication of Council's animal impoundment, rehoming and euthanasia statistics.

Responsible pet ownership should be assessed on the facts — not simply by counting animals.