alley cat rescue calls on australian municipality to reverse community cat bounty

Mt. Rainier, MD—On October 13, 2017 Alley Cat Rescue, An Alliance for Cat Protection, released a petition demanding an end to community cat bounty hunting in Banana Shire, Queensland. The government of Banana Shire has recently announced a bounty for the scalps of dead community cats. Alley Cat Rescue vehemently opposes encouraging individuals to kill community cats and is working to reverse this inhumane and ineffective bounty.
 
Our petition has reached over 105,000 signatures and counting. Almost 11,000 of these signatures are from Australians themselves. Many Australians have commented that they support trap-neuter-return and concerned about the safety of their pet cat if the cat gets outside. Property owners need to give hunters permission to hunt on their property but cats do not understand property lines and can wander into a hunter’s territory.

Alley Cat Rescue President, Louise Holton says, “Alley Cat Rescue wants to help Australian groups work on humane solutions to cat overpopulation which are far more effective than killing community cats.”

Cat overpopulation is an important issue in Australia that needs to be addressed but a barbaric bounty for the scalps of dead cats is not the answer. A study released this year in Animals entitled “Trap-Neuter-Return Activities in Urban Stray Cat Colonies in Australia” found that TNR coupled with adoptions of friendly community cats significantly reduced the number of community cats while also increasing the welfare of the animals. Another study in Tasmania found that culling community cats actually led to an increase in their population. They stated that this was probably due to new individuals taking over the area after dominant cats were removed. The Australian Veterinary Association is also critical of culling stating, “Control of cats may be extremely costly and result in only temporary predation relief for native animals and birds. Currently available technologies (trapping, shooting and poisoning) are unlikely to achieve eradication. In fact, this can only be achieved within predator-proof enclosures and on islands.”

For more information on Alley Cat Rescue's work please visit: http://www.saveacat.org/ and to sign our petition please visit: https://www.thepetitionsite.com/938/259/677/demand-an-end-to-community-cat-bounty-hunting-in-australia/
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About Alley Cat Rescue: ACR is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to the welfare of all cats: domestic, stray, abandoned, and feral. ACR advocates for humane nonlethal control of feral cats. ACR has been awarded the Independent Charities of Americas “Best in America” Seal of Approval, and our newsletter has won several awards from the Cat Writers’ Association. For more information, please visit our website www.saveacat.org.          ###