Supporting Members
Cat Protection Society of Victoria
We are Australia’s Largest Cat Welfare Organisation.
We were instrumental in founding the Cat Crisis Coalition to lobby government at all levels to introduce compulsory de-sexing for cats as part of an holistic solution to the cat overpopulation problem which sees thousands of healthy cats and kittens put down across our country each year.
Over the last 20 years the Cat Protection Society has also been active promoting the recognition of domestic cats as part of the broader community and has been very involved in the initiation and development of the Victorian State Government’s Domestic Animals Act in the feline area. It is now also helping with its implementation by providing advice and training sessions for local municipalities in this field.
Cats are our passion! We have been helping stray, wild and unwanted cats and kittens since 1947. Our services include re-homing cats and kittens, reuniting lost cats with their owners, trapping wild cats and operating a feline veterinary clinic.
Our society relies on community support through membership fees, donations and legacies to carry out our work.
The Cat Protection Society has been helping stray, wild and unwanted cats and kittens since 1947 the Society receives over 15,000 cats and kittens annually of which it re-homes over 4,000.Our primary purpose is the welfare of cats in a world often hostile to their interests..
As well as our daily shelter activities which involve caring for unwanted and abandoned animals we provide advisory and advocacy services pertaining to cat welfare.
Fortunately our record in both returning domesticated cats who have strayed from their homes and in finding new homes for abandoned cats and kittens is the best of any shelter in Australia – but we continue to want to do better.
The Australian Animal Protection Society (AAPS)
For over thirty years, The Australian Animal Protection Society (AAPS) has operated the Keysborough Animal Shelter in Melbourne for unwanted, lost and abandoned animals.
We have an excellent record for finding new homes for dogs but sadly, the opposite applies to cats and kittens. This is not for a lack of effort on our behalf, but a result of the high number of cats and kittens admitted to the shelter each year.
With over 3,500 felines admitted to the shelter annually and with the majority arriving during the “kitten season” (a six to seven month period of every year), it is impossible to find good homes for them all. In fact, less than one third of these cats are placed in new homes and the rest have to be humanely euthanased. Our statistics are similar to those of other shelters in Victoria.
During this heartbreaking period, our staff members struggle to accommodate the overwhelming numbers of cats. We are often traumatised by the numbers of felines that must be euthanised. This practice of using euthanasia to control the cat population has always been unacceptable to our team and it is made worse by the fact that we know it could be prevented if the compulsory desexing of cats was introduced.
Our commitment to achieve mandatory cat desexing has seen us join the Cat Crisis Coalition (CCC). The formation of the Coalition was to highlight the enormous problem of cat overpopulation and to pressure local and state governments into legislating for mandatory cat desexing so that the annual slaughter of felines will end, or, at the very least, be significantly reduced.
AAPS promotes responsible cat ownership, in particular, desexing. We believe that a desexed cat makes a much more socially acceptable pet – no yowling, fighting, spraying toms seeking females to mate with! Desexed cats are far more likely to be homebodies and most importantly, there will be no unwanted litters of kittens for owners.
AAPS is so strongly in favour of desexing that our outpatient veterinary clinic offers the procedure at a low cost. For financially disadvantaged cat owners we can offer a payment plan and we endeavour to assist pet owners in every way to have the opportunity to have their cat desexed.
It is time that the method of euthanasing cats and kittens as a way of controlling overpopulation of felines each year is abolished.
The Lost Dogs’ Home and Cat Shelter
Cat overpopulation is a serious and real concern. The problem continues each year; numbers of cats and kittens are not decreasing. The public must be made aware of the massive problem shelter staff face each day and how they can help tackle the issue of the cat crisis.
Victorian shelters are banding together to make a concerted effort to effectively and efficiently manage the volume of cats and kittens that they admit each year. Current efforts are simply not working.
The Lost Dogs’ Home and Cat Shelter is committed to cats and their welfare and is dedicated to working on a solution to the cat crisis, along with other key member organisations.
Every day veterinary and shelter staff at The Lost Dogs’ Home and Cat Shelter have no choice but to cope with the ignorance of people who choose not to desex or spey their cat. It is through their actions (or inaction) that has resulted in the cat overpopulation crisis.
There are simply not enough homes for these animals. The vast majority are suffering from diseases like Feline AIDs, severe cat flu and are not domesticated, rendering them unsuitable for rehoming under the Code of Practice all shelters must abide by.
With no choice but to humanely euthanise these animals, the emotional toll on staff and their morale is massive. The Lost Dogs’ Home and Cat Shelter experiences a high turnover of veterinary staff, not to mention an increase in the numbers of sick or personal leave days during kitten season
Veterinary staff are not the only ones affected – frontline shelter staff work daily with these cats and kittens who will never be claimed
Humane Society for Animal Welfare Inc. (HSAW)
The original members of the Humane Society for Animal Welfare, established over 30 years ago in North Melbourne, were concerned by the misery caused by pet overpopulation.
As time went on and the enormity of the problem unfolded, our efforts became wholly focused on the desexing of pets. Night after night, our field workers would trap homeless, hungry cats that were, and still are, taken to animal shelters for assessment, treatment and rehoming.
We have also always encouraged private cat owners to desex their pets and provided them with vouchers to help with the cost of the procedure. Even with our best efforts, it is clear the to us that the issue of cat overpopulation must be officially recognised and cat fertility humanely controlled.
We are members of the Cat Crisis Coalition, which presents a united front to government on demanding mandatory desexing of all cats over three months of age (except those registered to licensed breeders). We support early age desexing as it is safe and is necessary to protect against early, unintended litters.
Through constant lobbying by welfare organisations, including our society, for enforced desexing, all levels of government have been made aware of the issue and measures such as registration, education campaigns and microchipping have been introduced. There have been some benefits from these but cat numbers have not been affected.
On the grounds of compassion alone, it is clear that cat overpopulation should be dealt with before it happens and several surveys have shown overwhelming community support for compulsory desexing. Add to this the economic and environmental costs and we at can only wonder why it is so difficult to bring this matter to government attention.
We believe it is unreasonable and unsustainable for local governments to rely on voluntary animal welfare groups to do their work for them. Perhaps when cat numbers are humanly reduced through desexing, these animals will become the valued members of the community that they ought to be.
The Lort Smith Animal Hospital
For over 75 years, Lort Smith Animal Hospital has been assisting animals.
Our mission is to provide quality care for lost abandoned, mistreated, sick and injured animals; provide care for animals of people with limited means; promote responsible pet ownership and; foster an awareness of the animals and the benefits they can bring to people and the community.
However, despite all that we do, we continually face one of our shelter’s greatest challenges each year – the problem of cat overpopulation.
Starting in October every year, box after box brimming with unwanted litters of beautiful kittens is brought to us by members of the public. The reality is that shelters do not have unlimited space or unlimited resources and there are always more kittens being born each year than there are caring and responsible homes available.
Lort Smith Animal Hospital has joined the Cat Crisis Coalition and sees it as an outstanding opportunity for all major Victorian animal welfare organisations to work together towards a solution to the cat overpopulation problem. We are all united on seeking mandatory desexing of cats over the age of 12 weeks (unless registered to a licensed breeder).
The impact of “kitten season” on our shelter staff is enormous. They have to make life and death decisions each day. Our staff works in our shelter because they love animals and
The vision of the Lort Smith Animal Hospital is: A world in which animals are respected and the bond between humans and animals bond is understood and valued.
We are working with the Cat Crisis Coalition to help achieve this vision.
RSPCA
The RSPCA is wholly committed to creating awareness of the cat over population crisis both at a state and national level. The RSPCA demonstrates its support for the issue through education and the promotion of responsible pet ownership, media campaigns and of course, our involvement with the Cat Crisis Coalition.
Of the thousands of cats admitted to our welfare shelters in Victoria, 9801 were euthanased in the past year. This is in stark contrast to the number we were able to re-home, which was only 5090.
We strongly believe that the combined and continued efforts of leading animal welfare organisations will lead to a further reduction in euthanasia rates for cats, and improved pet ownership within the community.
A major focus of the RSPCA’s initiatives has been to raise the profile of cat desexing and increase the value of cats in the community. The RSPCA operates two veterinary clinics in conjunction with our largest animal welfare shelters at Burwood East and Pearcedale on the Mornington Peninsula. These veterinary clinics provide care to all animals admitted to the centres as well as operating as private clinics, with desexing and micro chipping of cats in “Kitten Season” provided at discount rates.
We remain vigilant in our lobbying of the government for compulsory cat desexing and improved welfare. This is conducted through our animal welfare campaigns and our involvement with groups such as the Cat Crisis Coalition. Visitors to our website are invited to sign our petition or write a letter to their local council in order to show their support for the enforcement of compulsory desexing.
The RSPCA has a number of useful and informative programs aimed at educating the community on the responsibility of cat ownership to provide further insight into cat behaviour and best practice initiatives. In line with our education goals, RSPCA Victoria has developed “The RSPCA Cat Kingdom”, an educational road show that actively engages adults and children in important cat welfare issues.
RSPCA Burwood East also holds many different cat welfare and behaviour sessions for cat owners with handy tips on how to keep your cat entertained while not at home to understanding a cat’s behaviour in general.
It is our hope that through continual education initiatives, and building strong awareness of the cat overpopulation crisis that we can overcome the unnecessarily high number of stray, unowned and unwanted cats in Victoria.
Victorian Animal Aid Trust
At the Victorian Animal Aid Trust we have long felt that the cats in our community have a much harder road to travel in this life and the attitude of many people toward cats leaves a lot to be desired.
The most telling example of this is the comparative reclaim rates for lost dogs and cats. For every 100 stray dogs that come in to our shelter, around 80 of them will go home with their owner within the eight-day holding period. However, for every 100 cats brought to our shelter, just 11 will be claimed.
These figures alone should be enough to show that cats don’t have significant value in our community. If councils continue to rely on their cat registration rates to gauge their cat populations then they are unlikely to think that there is a problem. The reality is that only a small percentage of cats are ever registered, making an actual population number almost impossible to determine.
As kitten season looms our staff brace themselves for the onslaught and it can be a very stressful time of year. Last year we received more than 700 kittens over an extended season due to the warmer weather.
Stray and semi-owned cats do little to improve the reputation of their species. Animal id believes that mandatory desexing could have a significant impact on unwanted cat populations, but it relies on a comprehensive approach.Councils undertaking initiatives in isolation may make headway but if the neighbouring council does nothing, then cats may travel to the newly freed up territory and the problem will continue.
Animal Aid would like to encourage you to find out what your council’s stance is on mandatory desexing and make your voice heard. If your council has not embraced it as a council policy, ask why not. If they have, then let them know that you approve and congratulate them for their progressive attitude.
