An initiative of Neonatal Kitten Rescue Hobart. A not for profit charity registered with the ACNC. All donations over $2 are tax deductible.

Find a detailed Eco Cat Management Plan here

Cats are a much loved companion animal, and when healthy, desexed and living indoors or in an enclosed outdoor space, can be a wonderful pet and live a rich long life.

Cats in the Tasmanian landscape are another matter. The hotly debated issues all involve outdoor strays and feral cats. There are some issues on which most people agree.

1. When government decided to release cats into rural farmland to help with the rat, mice and rabbits populations they did not anticipate the long term consequences.
2. Tasmania has a diverse and sometimes fragile ecosystem and cats are a threat.
3. Breeding season brings fighting, spraying and way too many kittens, but it isn’t the cats fault.
   

We want to be clear about our position on stray cats

1. We only have a position on urban and peri-urban stray cats. Cats in wild areas of Tasmania are not our area of expertise and we will leave that to the experts. Experts agree that cats are here to stay in Tasmania and eradication is impossible. NRE’s strategy is one of asset protection only. This strategy is not in dispute, it is based in evidence.
2. Cats in urban areas breed up around food sources. Rubbish and waste brings rats and mice. Cats eat the rats and mice and rabbits and the more food they have the more kittens survive to adulthood. Research shows, as with most small carnivores, 75% of kittens do not live beyond six months of age. Everywhere on the planet that humans live, cats, mice, rabbits do too
3. Adult cats are immune to toxoplasmosis and don’t spread the eggs like kittens and adolescent cats do. Encouraging interventions that stabilise an older population will help reduce toxoplasmosis.
4. Older cats tend not to hunt for fun and are not as active or playful as adolescent cats. We believe that breeding is the biggest issue in urban cat populations. Evidence shows that culling or otherwise removing cats and kittens simply drives breeding.
5. Many people feed stray cats. These are referred to as semi owned cats and while DPIWE and Councils ask people not to, it’s not a realistic ask, as most kind people will not see a cat suffer. Feeding without desexing does, however, increase breeding rates. More kittens per litter, more litters per year. So a fed cat might have 15 kittens each year wheres a cat just eating the rodents humans bring will have 4 kittens a year. You can see how fast the population explodes when cats are well fed. Well fed kittens get pregnant when they are only 4 months old. Desexing and taking ownership of your semi owned cats is for most people not financially possible. That’s why this project was born. We have discovered that caring people will desex and take ownership of semi-owned cat if there is help to do so and there is no financial burden.
6. Most people are willing to help financially if it doesn’t impact them too much. We pay up front and you pay us back.
7. For the cost of a cup of coffee weekly for less than six months that cat can be desexed.
8. Desexed cats tend not to fight or spray. They tend to drift from semi owned to happily owned, and they still help a little with the rats and mice, particularly around your home, and they don’t spread toxoplasmosis.
9. Research shows that with sufficient desex rates comes stable or decreased populations. This results in a win win situation for all concerned.
10. we also come across many people who kill cats. They believe cats shouldn’t be here and somehow they need to do their bit by killing them. The trouble is, that the evidence shows that their efforts actually increase the population in cull sites and increase hunting, fighting and native animal predation by cats at the cull sites. The reason is that you cannot eradicate cats from a property when there are cats on a neighbouring property that breed prolifically. You cannot eradicate cats from a suburb when surrounding cats breed prolifically. You cannot eradicate cats from a city when surrounding cats breed prolifically. All you will do when you try is increase breeding, hunting, fighting and native animal predation. We know that you didn’t mean to donthat.

We have big plans for helping stray and abandoned kittens and cats in Hobart and in order to achieve our goals we need all cat lovers on our team. We also could use people who don’t like cats on our team.

Now cat lovers come in all shapes and sizes. There are lots like you who have followed us because you care about the tiny kittens who are so vulnerable and suffer so much. They are the innocents and didn’t ask to be born. 

We need your help with our big goals because your big goals align with our big goals. Less tiny kittens that need saving.

Many of you will have different opinions about stray cats and about the other people who love cats and that’s fine, but we want to share what we think about the other cat lovers.

Some people love cats and they don’t get their cats desexed. They love kittens too but they often get overwhelmed. Their beliefs about desexing come from our farming heritage. We’ve had people say to us….why would you want to desex a stray cat? They really think that the animal should be free, was meant to be there and we shouldn’t intrude. They have an important place keeping rodent populations down and should be left alone.They don’t think it’s for them to control the fertility of another living creature, particularly one they love. Our society instilled that belief about 150 years ago and it has been passed down.

It’s not about being wrong or right, it’s just a belief, like politics and religion, when you hear some people’s beliefs it can be a little grating but it doesn’t mean they are wrong or bad, just different. If we want to help cats we need the people who think like us but we also need the people who don’t think like us.

Some people just get overwhelmed. They had good intentions taking in a stray, they really wanted to live with this cat, but before they know it she has had kittens and they are lovely and they love them and they didn’t mean for the kittens to get pregnant, after all they were only 4 months old but they could never abort the pregnancies so they blinked and suddenly there are 35 cats. It happens all too frequently, good people who love cats and care about their well being.

We need these people to help us with our big goals because our big goals align with their big goals. Less stray cats and less suffering.

Now there are people who love cats and they breed them. Who of you readers just took a sharp breath in and felt angry when you read that? We think a lot of our followers would have. But just take a moment. At least some of these people love all cats. They’ve had pet moggies since they were kids, but then they fall in love with a particular breed. Then they realise this breed isn’t being preserved. Take Birman cats who came from the Himalayas. They were all but wiped out by the Second World War. You could say that people who restored the breed and preserve it have done a service. For me I’m just glad there are people who care about the healthy cat genome and preserve it as we see so much inbreeding and congenital and genetic issues in urban strays.

We need these people to help us with our big goals, because our big goals align with their big goals. A more ethical way of supplying the 3,000 pet cats that people want to adopt in southern Tasmania every year, year after year.

And what about the people who don’t like cats. One common reason is that they love native wildlife. They hear all about the problems the cat causes. They hear about all the issues with wildlife since the white settlers came here and started destroying habitats and farming, growing crops and changing food sources. They know about the rat and mouse and rabbit issues, and the starlings, black birds and sparrows. 

We need these people to help us with our big goals, because our big goals align with their big goals. Safer wildlife and an extinction free Tasmania.

Then there are people who even say they hate cats. They hate the calling in the night, the cat fights, the spraying and the pooing in their garden or on their property. They hate the hunting and predation, but they also don’t want a rat, mouse or rabbit plague. 

We need these people to help us with our big goals because our big goals align with their big goals. A healthy ecosystem with less stray cats issues.

So what are our goals? Well they are simple. We want to stop the impact of urban stray cats. Reduced suffering for the cats and the ecosystem. We want Tasmania to use innovative, cruelty free population control measures, based in evidence to reduce the impact of cats in Tasmania. We would like pet cats to become beloved, domesticated, contained, companion animals because we see they are healthiest and happiest when they are and so is the planet.

So how can you help?

You can like and share our page and our posts. 

You can tell people about us including politicians and policy makers

You can donate or tell friends of yours who donate to charities about us

You can foster for us

You can volunteer

You can notify us of abandoned or orphaned kittens

You can tell us how cats impact your neighbourhood, send us an email or message our page, we would love to hear.

You can adopt

You can bring in a stray and let us help get it desexed

You can pay for a family members cat to be desexed.

You can donate kitten or cat food and supplies.

You can comment on our posts and encourage more people to talk about their experiences and perspectives.

You can listen to others perspectives and think of helping, not judging

Together we can make a difference.

Click HERE to find out how we can help you get your cat desexed