By: Richard Browne

Richard Browne — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 12:18:54 +0000

Cats are a pest like rats and they destroy native birdlife and animals..If any cats come into my garden they are shot on sight..As you say they also foul your garden,vegetables etc...they are vermin and need to be destroyed,and its the stupid people who keep these things......God people are braindead..

By: Millie Maree

Millie Maree — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:17:15 +0000

Dear Donna, I've just read your article "lock up those moggies" and for the first time ever I’ve felt strongly enough about something to make a comment. I've been trying to tell people this for years. Why aren't cats locked up? I can't for the life of me find an answer. I love the Sunshine Coast yet living in a residential area in Coolum it breaks my heart to see neighborhood cats eating lorikeets and skinks and blue tongue lizards among many other things. I’m always finding a mangled native animal in our tiny yard or surprise a cat chewing on a native bird or reptile behind the house. I don't want these cats on my property but what can I do? They also poo in my children's sand pit and these things happen just at my place! How many other places are they doing the same thing? My little girl loves lizards and birds and is so excited to see them around the house and I had planted bird attracting trees to encourage them yet now neighbourhood cats are relishing and benefiting in that. What do I do? Should I rip these native trees out as am I now part of this sickening cycle? Surely you and I can't be the only ones that see this madness! I've told my neighbours (and they seem like such lovely, considerate and intelligent people) yet they dismiss my claims as silly or even humorous. I only know of one responsible family (in Canada) that have three cats but those cats have never left the house in their fourteen years of life, and those cats are perfectly happy and have a wonderful life with their owners. Why can't everyone do that? If they find that cruel than don’t own a cat, isn’t it cruel many animals are dying in vein because of them? It’s not as if these cats are hungry, they are very well fed, they just do it for the sport. The only way to change this is to make it law. Perhaps this law would happen if enough of us stood together. We can't single handily tackle climate change or turn water into wine but how easy would it be to simply have cats contained and what an enormous environmental difference it would make. How can we get the ball rolling? Can we start up a blog? Can we rally up support in council? Could a budding science student looking for a PHD subject look into the environmental effects of domestic cats on the Sunshine Coast (or anywhere for that matter!) I have been saying this for twenty years, it's about time something is done about domestic cats and it shouldn't be difficult, animal lovers (and they must be if they have a cat) should support it if they have even the slightest compassion for all creatures great and small. Millie Maree

Comments on: Lock up those cats

By: Richard Browne

By: Millie Maree