Stage One Consultation is now closed:

Thank you to everyone who contributed to our Cats in Clarence consultation! We will publish what we heard in the coming weeks and there will be further opportunities to be part of cat management in Clarence as we progress your ideas to actions.

• We received 832 survey responses.
• Cat owners and non-cat owners both contributed, with 43% of responses from cat owners and 57% being owners of dogs, other pets and some without pets.
• We also received 18 email submissions from Clarence residents and experts, and 13 comments were left in our ideas box.

The consultation report is now available in the document folder to the right. This report includes survey feedback, workshop feedback and the individual submissions that were received.

Background

Clarence City Council is committed to improving the management and control of pets at home and in public spaces. Owning a pet has many benefits, including an improved sense of wellbeing, safety and social connectedness. However, not everyone shares the same views about pets. Council is seeking feedback on pets and public spaces to ensure we understand and meet the broad and diverse needs of the Clarence community.

There is now an opportunity to understand and better meet community expectations around cats in Clarence through the creation of a potential Cat Policy to accompany our existing Dog Policy. This will help to ensure a safe, enjoyable, and harmonious community and environment.

We are seeking to understand perceptions of cats in Clarence from residents of all ages. We are wanting to understand cat ownership, experiences with cats and suggested inclusions in a policy. We would like to hear from both cat owners and non-owners in a similar way that we approach our Dog Policy which seeks to balance the needs of dog owners with non-owners in our shared spaces.

Some of the following topics are common inclusions in other council’s cat policies and management frameworks and will be covered as part of the survey:

• registration for pet cats
• cat curfews (inside between dusk and dawn)
• cat confinement to reduce roaming (indoor and cat enclosures)
• microchipping and desexing
• ensuring cats wear identification (collar with tag)
• limit on number of cats per household (addressing cat hoarding)
• declaration of cat prohibited areas to protect wildlife (in conservation areas, reserves and sensitive wildlife areas)
• localised cat control strategies tailored to specific issues
• feral cat management

We expect this topic to be of interest to many and we are looking forward to hearing what you think!