Curfews, kill rates and cat myths: Australia’s feline crackdown is failing

Australia’s punitive cat curfews are built on flawed data and political spin, failing to protect wildlife while driving up kill rates, costs and suffering for animals and carers alike, writes Ashlley Morgan-Shae.

RECENTLY, the ABC published that an Australian chef was “very excited” about a “pussycat sandwich for lunch”.

The ABC has previously televised hunting, cooking and eating cats. Publicity-seeking celebrities are given the ABC's publicly-funded platform.

Widespread misnaming of domestic cats as “feral” and “wild” condemns many urban homeless and lost cats. Weasel words of “safe”, “protect”, “educate” become killer sentences.

Australian definition:

Feral cats do not live in the vicinity of where people live and they do not receive food from humans intentionally (direct feeding) or unintentionally (e.g. via food waste bins). Feral cats are completely unsocialised to humans and have none of their needs fulfilled by humans. Feral cats are not found or trapped in the vicinity of where people live, are not the subject of nuisance complaints and do not enter Australian council pounds or animal shelters.

Ninety per cent of Victoria's impounded cats are homeless, with no one to contain, no one to charge and no one to convict. Rescuers battle to raise funds, to save, to desex, to foster and find homes for kittens, mothers, battered elderly toms, without government help.

Labor declares war on cats as environmental destruction continues

Habitat destruction is by far the biggest threat to endangered species in Australia, but while this goes on unabated, the Environment Minister calls for yet another war on cats.

Felines are associated with femininity, non-conformity and independence. Canines with loyalty and obedience. Australian dogs get good press. Mostly, cats get bad press. Rural working dogs and rat poisons get tax deductions.

Yet working cats, or ‘feline farmhands’, cats doing an equally important job as working dogs and horses, get no deductions, no desexing help, no government recognition.

Mandated cat containment laws are expensive failures. The Australian Pet Welfare Foundation reports that Victoria's Casey Council currently spends an estimated $1.83 million annually enforcing a 24-hour cat curfew and has risen impoundments by 680% — more than double the rate of population growth over 27 years.

Australia kills 50,000 cats and kittens yearly. One-in-four council pounds in New South Wales and Victoria kill 67-100%. Cat curfews target owned cats, while worsening the 90% of homeless impounds. Rescuers are placed at a suicide risk greater than that endured by Australian police and firefighters.

Cashed-up organisations, celebrities and politicians whip up a frenzy against felines. Carers and rescuers are subjected to hate speech and threats.

Animal Justice Party member Emma Hurst, MLC says:

Cat containment laws are simply cat-killing laws.

Instead, they're pushing for cat killing through cat containment laws, where there's no evidence that that's even going to work to protect wildlife.

The biggest threats that we have to wildlife is deforestation, climate change, overdevelopment...

Management of Cat Populations in New South Wales 2025, the government response, states that ‘desexing is the most effective way of reducing stray cat populations’ through ‘targeted, accessible desexing programs’.

Community Cat Programs targeted, intensive, free desexing helps the homeless and strays. This lowers costs to councils, lowers impounds, decreases complaints and results in greater pet registration. These programs also reduce dog impoundments and free up more resources to care for and re-home dogs. Partnering with rescuers and carers helps residents keep pets. This ‘One Welfare’ approach optimises the well-being of people, animals and their environment.

Cats keep the rats away. Removing cats from being seen increases the risk of disease. My neighbour lays rat poison and has killed two ringtail possums who greeted me daily on my windowsills. I found their bodies, having bled out from the mouth. One I had watched from a baby, carried on its mother's back.

Cat bites can be more dangerous than you think

Warning, if you own cats or have neighbourhood felines, you may not be aware of the significant consequences of a cat bite.

Australia has announced the removal of Ratsak from shelves. Toxicologists report rats' resistance to second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides, preventing blood-clotting and causing internal bleeding, is killing Australian tawny frogmouths, boobook owls, eastern barn owls, frogs, toads, possums and reptiles. Poisons leach into waterways, warning of a possible human health crisis.

Estimated predation figures are flawed data, which is disproven by scientific analysis from the Australian Pet Welfare Foundation:

‘While the impact of feral cats on Australian native wildlife populations in natural environments is well-documented, there is no scientific evidence that domestic cats (cats that live in the vicinity of people) have any viability or conservation impacts at a population level on native wildlife.’

Local councils' punishing curfew fines target renters, the elderly and struggling families. For five years, Knox AdvoCats tried to get consultation on a 24-hour lifetime lockdown. Registration of cats and dogs is down. Knox Council’s Domestic Animal Management Plan 2026-2029 spends more on patrols and door knocks to issue fines.

Knox dogs are actioned free dog-training programs and dog desexing. Cats and carers receive nothing. Knox says they have no money for cat desexing. Knox already pays more to impound cats than cat desexing would cost.

Knox dogs run unleashed in over 300 parks, reserves and sports fields, as well as four dog parks; and sport in Pets in the Park. The RSPCA does not recommend leashing a cat. Knox silences questions, dismissing facts as “preamble” and “collateral”, deleting whole public questions from the meeting minutes.

Knox’s new charge of $140 per relinquished animal will likely lead to more street abandonments. Councils' continuous spending without results makes residents and cats collateral damage.

I wrote to the celebrity chef's major shareholders: cordial and pasta, family-friendly brands. Questioning eating “pussycat sandwich for lunch” with its sexual innuendo. Disturbingly invoking children’s lunchboxes. The chef sent me a reply approving of eating ‘feral’ animals, as not ‘domestic’, without reading the sent Australian definition.

2025 media reports question the celebrity’s use of millions of public dollars. In 2014, the ACCC found misleading food labelling. Without ABC accountability, could hawkers promote a provocative cat sauce — saucy pussy, a tomcat topping, a tabby chutney, perhaps a beer-infused, slanged “cat piss” cordial?

I take the unAustralian stance that cat-carers are not “crazy”, “childless”, “needing mental help” for loving not “the right pet”, not fitting Knox's stated “real dog lovers”. We do not need your “education”, thought control and dark sarcasm or misinformation.

The Brigitte Bardot Foundation is a core sponsor of the Australian Pet Welfare Foundation for community cat desexing.

“Your country is sullied by the blood of millions of innocent animals,” Brigitte told a succession of Australian governments, “so please, don’t add cats to this morbid record.”

Australian politicians frame cat curfews as “designed to save wildlife”, knowing full well that curfews waste money and cost lives evermore. Imagine if Australian felines were as valued as canines.

Ashlley Morgan-Shae began Save Dandenong Foothills to save native birds and canopy trees. Knox AdvoCats came together for consultation, accuracy and science-proven solutions.