We call on the Minister for Environment, Murray Whatt to urgently correct and clarify the cruel national Threat Abatement Plan which has incorporated all stray cats as a subclass of feral cats, and therefore likely apply the same lethal approaches to urban domestic cats (strays - semi owned and unowned cats, aka abandoned cats).

We are a voice for domestic abandoned cats, colony cats under care, and other domestic cats labelled as “stray”, who deserve a second chance in life. Many of us have adopted these cats into our hearts and homes.

Each year, across Australia thousands of stray cats are rescued, shown care, and rehomed, as currently provided by council pounds, animal welfare organisations, rescue and rehoming organisations, and Good Samaritan people across our communities.

The TAP intentions may halt the work of animal welfare advocates, enable cruel and disproportionate violence against domestic stray cats, and have the likelihood of encouraging more violence and cruelty to cats in the general public.

• We support proactive, proven and humane steps to protect wildlife.

• We do not support the mass eradication of ALL stray cats under feral cat eradication methods as included in the "Threat Abatement Plan (TAP) for predation by feral cats".

• We support the views and key points of our leading domestic cat experts in Australia: the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) Australia; the Australian Pet Welfare Foundation (APWF); and the Animal Justice Party (AJP).

We call on the Minister to continue to enable stray / abandoned cats to be rescued and rehomed, stop mass deaths, and correct the TAP and associated protocols to meet international standards from domestic cat experts, corrections including:

1. Reinstate the separate stray cat definition to ensure it is a transparent, independent category, and updated to “domestic semi-owned and unowned cats” to align with RSPCA’s 2018 Best Practice Domestic Cat Management report.

2. Incorporate the APWF evolution of cat definitions based on leading Australian research including further subsets of semi-owned cats e.g. colony cats, cats under community cat programs, those cared by rescue groups and people in our communities, and recognise the value of those human connections and service to the communities.

3. Develop a separate Australian Domestic Cat Management Plan with domestic cat experts for a well-informed assessment of approaches for separate cat categories, as included in the 2015 TAP: stray cat management requires a different approach to feral cat predation, involving social approaches for “complex relationships between people, families, groups and their companion animals”.

4. Assess, fund and apply evidence-based proven programs such as: funded free desexing programs for those on low incomes and those in remote areas currently without accessible and affordable vet services; and subsidised desexing programs; to rapidly address the number of cats in Australia. (This also applies for owned cats and dogs.)

5. Reassess the use of 1080 poison, which is considered inhumane, likened to being electrocuted for two days, has been banned in other countries for decades, with devices not able to differentiate between domestic and feral cats nor small native animals. 

INFORMATION SOURCES

A summary of key points on the TAP, plus views of RSPCA Australia, APWF and AJP can be found here: https://loverescuecollaborate.org/2024/09/24/australia-rescue-rehome-stray-cats-do-not-eradicate-all-stray-cats-everywhere/

Detailed sources: 

https://consult.dcceew.gov.au/draft-updated-threat-abatement-plan-for-predation-by-feral-cats

https://www.agriculture.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/tap-predation-feral-cats-2015.pdf

https://kb.rspca.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Identifying-Best-Practice-Domestic-Cat-Management-in-Australia-RSPCA-Research-Report-May-2018.pdf

https://petwelfare.org.au/2023/07/17/australian-pet-welfare-foundation-position-statement-on-cat-definitions/

https://www.rspca.org.au/latest-news/media-centre/feral-cat-plan-targets-the-wrong-cats/

https://petwelfare.org.au/response-to-draft-tap/

https://petwelfare.org.au/2023/07/17/australian-pet-welfare-foundation-position-statement-on-cat-definitions/

https://www.al.org.au/ban-1080

https://www.facebook.com/100050201361956/posts/1042693667414002/?mibextid=xfxF2i&rdid=FAv8UVjbjF7xUWI9