STRAY cats are on notice, and owners warned their wandering pets could be trapped if trespassing.
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Each week the the City of Greater Bendigo’s Animal Services unit is kept busy loaning out humane traps to residents to catch unwanted cats. While the number of requests for help remains constant, the humane, trigger-plate cat traps are being loaned out for longer in an effort to stem ongoing problems.
In the past financial year, 273 trap loans were made, compared with 335 in the previous 12 months, Jock Schofield from Animal Services said.
“We now offer residents the option to keep the trap for longer periods, which enables the resident to achieve their desired outcome of trapping the unwanted visitor,” Mr Schofield said. “Property owners and occupiers have the right to trap cats when they trespass on their properties. If a cat has been on your property more than once, without your permission, you may trap the cat. “
A curfew required cats to be confined to their owner’s property from dusk to dawn.
“Cats breaching the curfew can be trapped,” he said. “Once a cat has been trapped the resident must contact the city for the cat to be picked up or deliver the cat to the council pound as soon as is reasonably possible. Any method of trapping cats must be humane.”
Mr Schofield said the city would work with residents that have issues with stray cats. “It has been identified that desexed cats are less likely to roam and council offers a number of discounted desexing vouchers to registered cat owners each year,” he said. Microchipped or council-registered pet cats that are caught would be returned to their owner.
Removing any food sources from a property would help deter cats, Mr Schofield said.
“(And) there are lots of remedies for deterring stray cats on line, such as planting different varieties of plants, that won’t harm the cats.”