NSW RSPCA has responded to the NSW Parliamentary Committee recommendations on cat management ahead of the release of its report.
A parliamentary inquiry was launched in October 2024 looking at the management of cat populations across the state where stakeholders, groups and organisations provided evidence and made submissions.
"RSPCA NSW provided a detailed submission and have evidence before the committee, based on our extensive experience working on holistic, 'One Welfare' approaches to cat management that balance the interests of the environment, cats, and people who care about them," RSPCA NSW said in a statement.
"Thanks to the assistance of the NSW Environmental Trust, RSPCA NSW were able to trial a human behaviour change approach to cat management."
This was the Keeping Cats Safe at Home program that Weddin Shire Council was successful in being selected to take part in.
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"That proved highly successful," the statement read.
"Keeping Cats Safe at Home combined targeted cat desexing programs, which directly addressed cat overpopulation, with an education and engagement campaign to increase cat caregivers' knowledge and confidence in preventing their cats from roaming.
"The four-year project was associated with reductions in the free roaming cat population, cat related nuisance complaints to council, and reductions in council pound cat intake and euthanasia."
The RSPCA said in their submission they made six recommendations, including:
- Replace the current cat management approaches across NSW with consistent, state wide approaches that are evidence based, adequately funded and incorporate monitoring and ongoing evaluation.
- Support large scale, targeted desexing programs such as that provided through the Keeping Cats Safe at Home program.
- Reform the Companion Animals Act 1988 (NSW) to require councils to assist their communities with unowned, lost, or abandoned cats by collecting unowned cats when requested, and by providing accessible surrender and rehoming services.
- Invest in research on appropriate indicators of the potential positive or negative impacts of mandatory containment on cats, wildlife and the community.
At the conclusion of the inquiry the committee released a report that contained 10 recommendations, to which the RSPCA has responded ahead of the report to be released by the Government.
RSPCA NSW supports all of the recommendations, with the exception of one, which they have provisionally supported, being recommendation eight, that the government explore legislative options to regulate the breeding of cats, including consideration of outlawing kitten farming and the sale of cats from breeders in pet shops.
"RSPCA NSW considers the amendments to Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1979 (NSW) relating to the breeding of dogs to have been a missed opportunity to also regulate the breeding of cats," RSPCA NSW said.
"We support wholistic review to modernise Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1979, the Regulations for this purpose, the Animal Welfare Code of Practice for Breeding Dogs and Cats."
