Firstly, I don’t like em’, they are horrible creatures that don’t belong here and I point the finger of blame firmly at my mum for being a breeder of Persians when I was but a lad (back then I loved them) for creating this complete lack of empathy towards our feline masters through over-exposure and knowledge of their evil intent to enslave us all.
We all have the odd wandering moggie slip silently through our yards or in some cases, fight furiously with another cat outside our bedroom windows at 2 am but what rights do we have to actually deal with them?
Now before anyone says “Deal with them? Why ‘deal’ with them, just leave them be!”, I would like to draw your attention to the beautiful crimson Rosella corpse (*points at corpse) in my backyard that my daughter saw die at the paws of a cat this morning. Somewhere, this birds mate is sitting in a tree wondering what the hell it’s going to do for the next 20+ years because I believe they mate for life, anyway..
I’m all for catching cats and taking them to the pound IF they have some form of identification on them such as a collar or Medicare card but where does one stand if they have nothing? Can a resident treat them as feral cats, which are an identified feral species (pest) and legal to neutralise, just so long as it’s done humanely? Or must one expend more of their own time and money to deliver said ‘feral’ cat to the pound?
Where does one stand legally?