South Oakleigh Wildlife Shelter has encouraged owners to keep their cats indoors, in order to protect vulnerable Australian wildlife.

Across Victoria domestic cats kill an estimated 29 million wildlife a year, causing a major threat to Australia’s native species.

South Oakleigh Wildlife Shelter manager Michele Phillips rescues and rehabilitates around 2000 native animals a year, at least 1600 of her patients are in some way related to a cat attack.

“Once they’ve been touched by a cat it’s a death sentence, cats carry toxoplasmosis which is fatal to wildlife,” Ms Phillips said.

“There’s been so much research done about the content of a cat’s stomach and it’s horrific. It’s not just one bird or possum they kill, they kill lots.”

Monash Council has implemented a cat curfew in response to community consultations with registered cat owners and wildlife groups.

Under the curfew owners would be required to keep their cats inside between sunset and sunrise, at the risk of a $165 fine.

Indoor cat owner Jamie Lyy said it would be difficult to enforce a nightly cat curfew.

“They don’t have a concept of human time, there’s no guarantee they’ll come home at sunset,” Ms Lyy said.

“You can’t really implement a cat curfew if the cat doesn’t want to come home.”

The only way to stop domestic cats from killing native wildlife would be for councils to ban free roaming cats Ms Phillips said.

“if people just kept their cats locked up, the birds wouldn’t be getting attacked,”

In Australia, 1.1 million pet cats are kept indoors 24 hours a day, as compared to the remaining 2.7 million pet cats which are allowed to roam and hunt freely.

Wildlife shelter urges owners to keep cats inside. This page is part of the collection 'Journalism Portfolio'.

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