The Biodiversity Council appreciates the opportunity to provide input to the review of the NSW Companion Animals Act 1998. Our feedback focuses on cat management and the opportunity to collectively increase responsible pet ownership, protect wildlife and enhance the lives of pet cats by amending the Act to include cat containment provisions for local councils.

We detail 12 recommendations that emphasise the need to amend the Act to support containment for councils and provide them with the resources to properly implement initiatives to increase responsible pet ownership practice, as well as other legislative amendments that focus on improving biodiversity outcomes through better cat management. They are summarised below:

Recommendation 1: Require local governments to develop and implement companion animal management plans that address objectives, strategies, monitoring and evaluation, and require that these plans be reviewed at least every 5 years to help drive continuous improvement of cat management.

Recommendation 2: Provide an exemplar/template companion animal management plan to councils for them to adopt or amend, to improve efficiency and increase consistency across NSW.

Recommendation 3: Amend Part 4 of the Companion Animals Act 1998 to enable local governments to enforce the containment of pet cats at a local level by allowing councils to declare an entire local government area, or any area within their jurisdiction, as a cat containment or curfew area for the purposes of preventing cats from roaming.

Recommendation 4: Ensure that a practical policy approach is taken that gives councils enough flexibility to meet the specific needs of their area and their communities, including phase-in periods.

Recommendation 5: Develop a cat containment policy that councils can adopt or amend as needed.

Recommendation 6: Allocate long-term, multi-year funding to support local governments to enforce compliance with the Companion Animals Act 1998 and any cat containment policies. Local governments should be eligible for funding to support the employment of staff to establish and implement cat containment policies and the implementation of associated activities, such as advertising and providing subsidies and support to community members.

Recommendation 7: Develop and disseminate a standardised companion animal management guidance package for local governments. The NSW Government should encourage all councils to adopt these. The package should include:

1. A companion animal management plan template,
2. An exemplary cat containment policy that councils can adopt or amend as needed
3. Guidance and format councils can follow to undertake community consultation, and
4. A messaging and communication guide

Recommendation 8: Continue to recognise two categories/definitions for cats: 1) owned (pet) cats – for which owners have full responsibility, and 2) unowned cats, which could also be termed feral.

Recommendation 9: Incorporate consideration of the environment into the objectives of the Companion Animals Act 1998.

Recommendation 10: Amend the NSW Companion Animals Act 1998 to:

1. clearly articulate mandatory desexing of pet cats by four months of age
2. require all animals rehomed through a pound or shelter to be desexed.

Recommendation 11: Provide ongoing funding for councils to undertake large-scale desexing, microchipping and registration programs, and fund effective education programs to encourage people to keep cats indoors. Continue to disallow trap neuter release programs which do not reduce the impacts cats have on wildlife.

Recommendation 12: Make it an offence under the Companion Animals Act 1998 to release any cat to the environment, including bush land, suburban and urban landscapes.

Download the full submission for more details.