{"id":13033,"date":"2026-05-17T21:44:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T21:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/13033\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T21:44:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T21:44:17","slug":"new-south-wales-animal-rescuers-call-for-change-amid-a-growing-stray-cat-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/13033\/","title":{"rendered":"New South Wales animal rescuers call for change amid a growing stray cat ‘crisis’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Animal rescuers across New South Wales say they’re struggling to cope with a surge in surrendered cats, warning legislative gaps are fuelling a growing stray “crisis”.<\/p>\n

Peta Smith, president of the Hunter Valley Animal Facility and Rehoming Centre, said her organisation was one of many under increasing pressure as surrender rates climbed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Over the past two years, Ms Smith has seen a sharp increase in cats being dropped off at the centre, often after being turned away from local pounds.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Hunter Valley Animal Facility and Rehoming Centre has had to stop accepting stray kittens and cats. (ABC Newcastle: Ben Clifford)<\/p>\n

Ms Smith said the surge in stray and abandoned cats was stretching resources thin across the sector. \u00a0<\/p>\n

“We’ve got six to eight-week-old kittens being caught and to tell a finder, ‘Let it go where you found it’ \u2026 it’s heartbreaking,” Ms Smith said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We’re at crisis point. We have no room to help.”<\/p>\n

Under the Companion Animals Act in NSW, cats can only be seized if found in a dedicated food preparation or wildlife protection area, otherwise they are free to roam.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Rescuers say the “free to roam” provision is causing issues on the ground. (Supplied: The Stray Cats Project)<\/p>\n

Ms Smith said the roaming provision blurred responsibility for cat management and encouraged breeding between pets and strays.<\/p>\n

“This ‘free to roam’ is perpetuating a constant breeding cycle that all of us rescuers are overwhelmed with,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Until cats are treated the same as dogs and have to be desexed and contained, this is just going to get worse and worse.”<\/p>\n

Rochelle Wood runs The Stray Cats Project, a charity which feeds and desexes stray cats across Newcastle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Rochelle Wood feeds hundreds of cats across Newcastle every night.\u00a0 (ABC Newcastle: Ben Clifford)<\/p>\n

Ms Wood claimed local councils across the state were using the legislation as a “loophole” to avoid managing stray populations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think the council and the laws absolutely need changing,” Ms Wood said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We’re getting up to 20 calls a day about stray cats because they call the council and council just say they’re free to roam.<\/p>\n

“We need council and the government to step up.”<\/p>\n

Wildlife rescue organisations are concerned that if the roaming and stray cat population is left unchecked it will have a devastating impact on native wildlife.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On average the Invasive Species Council estimates each roaming pet cat kills 186 animals per year.<\/p>\n

Hunter Wildlife Rescue vice-president Kerry Walker said on average her organisation saw about 400 animals, mainly birds and possums, present with cat attack symptoms each year.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Kerry Walker says unmanaged roaming and stray cats have a devastating impact on native animals. (ABC Newcastle: Ben Clifford)<\/p>\n

“The issue with a cat attack is that because of the toxic saliva on their claws and on their teeth, it’s almost always fatal,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Cats always have an instinct to kill.<\/p>\n

“We would encourage people to keep their cats inside all the time, especially at night.”<\/p>\n

Advocates divided<\/p>\n

In 2024, a New South Wales parliamentary inquiry was launched to examine how cat populations are managed across the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After two hearings and more than 500 submissions, the committee handed down 10 recommendations, largely focused on expanding desexing programs and driving behaviour change to encourage owners to keep cats indoors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In September the NSW Greens introduced a bill proposing to introduce cat containment laws, which would require pet owners to keep their cats inside.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Opinions are divided about the best way to manage stray cat populations. (ABC Upper Hunter: Courtney Yeandle)<\/p>\n

However, some animal welfare experts argue mandatory cat containment would be difficult to enforce and is unlikely to address the root causes of the problem.<\/p>\n

The Australian Pet Welfare Foundation’s chief scientist, emeritus professor Jacquie Rand, said data showed roaming cats were more prominent in lower socio-economic areas, where the cost of containment could be prohibitive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Most of the free-roaming cats, in fact, don’t have an owner to contain them,” Ms Rand said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s a socio-economic issue.”<\/p>\n

She said high-intensity, targeted desexing programs were proven to be more effective.<\/p>\n

“It needs to be evidence-based and targeted to where the problem areas are.”<\/p>\n

Changes afoot<\/p>\n

The Companion Animals Act is under review by the NSW government.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With the community divided, Minister for Local Government Ron Hoenig said introducing changes was “not an easy call to make”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Ron Hoenig believes local councils could take on responsibility for picking up stray cats as well as dogs. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

He said he would like to see councils play a greater role in the management of stray cats but also acknowledged the financial pressures many local councils were under.<\/p>\n

“In my view there’s no reason to distinguish between dogs and cats, which means that stray cats will have to be picked up by councils as part of the same responsibility for dogs,” Mr Hoenig said.<\/p>\n

“But the cost of their training, the cost of their pound services, those are all issues that we’ve got to take into consideration to get that balance right.”<\/p>\n

The state government is expected to finalise its review within the coming months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Animal rescuers across New South Wales say they’re struggling to cope with a surge in surrendered cats, warning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13694,22,21,9204,9706,13695,355,5305,13696,13693],"class_list":["post-13033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-animal","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-cats","tag-crisis","tag-native-wildlife","tag-new-south-wales","tag-rescue","tag-roaming","tag-stray"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}