Aussie Cats to Be Kept Indoors, New Rules Propose

Stephanie Peatling in Sydney
for National Geographic News

November 18, 2005

Canberra, Australia's capital, has a bad reputation—other Aussie
cities consider it boring, uptight, and politically correct to a fault.

Most of the city's 300,000 residents don't seem to mind. The city's progressive environmental policies have created a town full of large public spaces and bushland corridors housing native wildlife.

But new amendments to Canberra's Domestic Animals Act might add another eco-friendly policy to the books that would reduce the ability of certain four-legged residents to enjoy the great outdoors.

The new law, currently being debated by the capital's Legislative Assembly, would require all house cats in the soon-to-be-built Canberra suburbs of Forde and Bonner to stay indoors or in fenced backyards.

Cat owners moving into the new suburbs would need to have their pets implanted with microchip identification tags. If the animals are found outside the fences, owners would face up to a thousand Australian dollars in fines.

"The national capital is blessed with significant tracts of bushland interspersed with patches of urban development," said Jon Stanhope, the Australian Capital Territory's (ACT) chief minister.

"For the first time, the ACT government has decided that the sensitivity of reserves adjoining two new suburban developments is sufficiently compelling to warrant special cat-containment provisions."

Cat Collar

The proposed policy is meant to protect wildlife in the neighboring Mulligan's Flat and Goorooyarroo nature reserves.

The reserves are home to four vulnerable species of birds. They also provide habitat for an endangered lizard and several threatened frogs and reptiles.

The government decided to take action after a study showed that three quarters of the capital's cats had hunted wildlife at some point.

"We also know that cats are likely to take a higher proportion of native animals in nature reserves than in urban areas," Stanhope said.

Although the plan might sound extreme to some cat owners, local conservationists say it isn't enough.

They would prefer that cats be banned outright rather than allowing the furry hunters anywhere near land that supports endangered ground-dwelling birds.

"The current decline in woodland bird species is of particular concern in the Canberra region, where six threatened bird species are facing substantial survival pressures," wrote conservation groups and the territory's planning and environment departments in a submission prepared for the Legislative Assembly.

The Conservation Council of the South East Region and Canberra, a major environmental advocacy group, would have liked the new suburbs to be declared the first cat-free residential developments.

"We wanted an outright ban [on cats], but the government said that would be legislatively difficult to do, so we've gone for containment," said Trish Harrup, the council's executive director.

The council made efforts to gage public opinion on a range of pet-managing options, including containment. They were surprised at the level of support they received for curtailing cats.

"A lot of people [here] don't like cats, because they impact on their lives," Harrup said.

"But even cat owners seem supportive, because containment is good for their animals. There will be less chance of them being run over or attacked by other animals or being exposed to diseases."

The suburbs are still in the planning stages, which will give the government time to consider how it will actually monitor the new policy if it becomes law, Harrup says.

"How do you enforce it? Cats are much harder to trap than dogs," she said.

"We will need good education too so people do the right thing rather than relying on policing bad behavior."

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