Editorial by JESSE GRAHAM
WHEN controversial laws and ideas are raised, the debate about them is often fierce and there is an ever-present danger of misunderstanding pushing the conversation in the wrong direction.
As Mark Twain said, a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.
This was definitely the case with the cat curfew in the Yarra Ranges.
I’m sure that many of you woke up on Thursday 1 October – the first day of the curfew’s effect – to find that your cat had not been rounded up and taken away and that infringement notices hadn’t come rolling in.
You may have found the month since the curfew began passed with relatively few lock-ups of your pet.
And that’s likely because the curfew isn’t such a horrible beast, and wasn’t designed to punish cat owners – but merely to offer a means of legal redress for problem cats.
The debate about the issue, however, was undermined by comments that the animals would have to be kept indoors 24 hours a day – something that simply isn’t the case.
Generally speaking, the curfew requires that cats – like other pets – must be kept within their owner’s fence-line at all times.
The purpose of this is to prevent cats roaming and killing wildlife – including lyrebirds – or from getting killed themselves on roads.
Now, animals have many different needs, and that varies with the individual, but it is important to note that owners must meet their animal’s needs within their own means – including their property size.
To say that an animal must be able to roam unattended and outside of the owner’s property is diffusing and refusing that responsibility to care for an animal appropriately and to ensure that it does not bring undue harm to the community around it.
If you aren’t able to care for an animal appropriately with the resources you have, it has to be fully considered whether or not you’re the right person to care for an animal in the first place.
Taking care of another living thing is a privilege, not a right.
But animal owners can take heart – the council simply doesn’t have the resources to patrol all night and day looking for wayward cats.
Neighbours concerned by problem cats, however, will be able to humanely capture them and have them picked up by council rangers under the curfew – something that had been troublesome before, during daytime hours.
Some owners may find themselves on the receiving end of a fine, but that happens when laws are broken, and it can be an incentive for owners to pick up their game and make their property more secure for animals.
But, at the end of the day, freedom to own an animal is like freedom to have your own religion – I don’t mind what you believe, but if I found you in my front yard in the middle of the night, screeching in tongues, I’d have to call the relevant authorities.
