SAFE Avon Valley have taken in 26 cats during the first week of the new year.
The organisation rescue and re-home animals from the Wheatbelt and Avon area.
Volunteer Freedom Bradbury said the number is very high compared to their intake during the rest of the year.
“We find it isn’t so much the typical case of families buying pets over Christmas and not being able to take care of them, it’s more we have a problem with people not sterilising their cats,” she said.
“I have people come to me eight weeks after their cat has had kittens and they never knew their pet was pregnant.
“We need to help educate people on the requirement of sterilisation.”
The Cat Act was changed in 2013 to include the requirement of cat owners to register, identify and sterilise their pets with the local government having power to enforce these laws.
Ms Bradbury said SAFE helps educate owners on sterlisation and can even help book appointments with local vets to get the procedure done.
One of SAFE Avon Valley’s aims is to lower the cat population in rural areas.
Ms Bradbury said in her experience she has seen Northam have higher rates of animals not being sterilised compared to other areas.
“I worked at the CatHaven and RSPCA in Perth and it’s a different problem here than it is there,” she said.
“Northam is a very transient population.
“People move in and out of town and pets don’t always go with them.
“With cats they can get away with roaming the streets.”
SAFE Avon Valley have now started to take in cats and dogs throughout the Wheatbelt area with animals recently coming from York, Goomalling, Victoria Plains and Pingelly.
Ms Bradbury is in constant contact with the Ranger services in the Wheatbelt as well as collecting animals from pounds.
She said SAFE is starting to see the impact of the Cat Act in smaller country towns.
“Last year when the contract ranger service started going to some of the smaller regional towns they were really enforcing those laws,” she said.
“So this season we have taken a lot less kittens from these areas.
“In Goomalling we’ve definitaley made some progress.
“In 2015 we sterilsed about 50 cats in a short period of time and I don’t get very many from there anymore.”
She is hopeful Northam will start seeing the same results.
“I think we’re going to have to start seeing those impacts in Northam soon if for no other reason than SAFE rescuing kittens and making sure they are sterilised before we re-home them.”
SAFE currently has 100 cats actively looking for homes with the vast majority kittens due to a prolonged kitten season.
In 2017 SAFE took 400 cats into their care and were able to re-home and adopt out around half of them.
The rest went on to larger rescue organisations in Perth with bigger demographics and reach.
Ms Bradbury said alongside collecting cats from a large area of the Wheatbelt comes families from a fair distance away wanting to adopt the cats.
She said she hopes to see the number of adoptions in town continue to grow since Northam has the highest number of cats she collects.
“Our biggest problem is finding enough people to adopt the cats,” she said.
“In the last 12 months we’re had a massive surge in the number of local adoptions.”
SAFE also require foster homes for their animals, generally for their kittens as they grow old enough to be vacinated and sterlised before being adopted out.
“We’ve had really high rates of fostering in 2017,” said Ms Bradbury.
“It’s always hard finding people with that level of commitment but sometimes we just need the animals looked after for a very short amount of time.”
It’s not just cats and dogs that SAFE help out.
They have also helped look after and re-home pet rabbits.
SAFE have had great success with their Barn Buddies program, pairing up cats that aren’t social with people that want natural pest control on their properties.
“We recently had nine cats go to a local piggery,” Ms Bradbury said.
“They were not safe people cats.
“They were able to live in the secure shed where they are away from the roads and not able to destroy wildlife.
“We also make sure they’re sterilised.
“That was 9 cats we wouldn’t have been able to re-home anywhere else.”
The group raise $5,000 at a quiz night fundraiser they held in Perth in November, which Ms Bradbury says was a relief.
“The major difference with being involved with SAFE compared to my time at the Cat Haven and the RSPCA is that I didn’t have to worry about their finances.
“With SAFE every donation helps so we were so happy with the turn out of the quiz night.
“A week before the event we hadn’t sold many tables but by the time we got to the night of the event it was sold out.”
Due to its success, SAFE have plans to make this an annual event.
SAFE are always looking for donations of new items that can be auctioned off at fundraising events.
“Now is the perfect time after Christmas to do a clean out and donate any unwanted, still packaged Christmas presents,” said Ms Bradbury.
SAFE are always in need of pet food, beds and shelters to help them with their stay before they find their forever home.
For more information on how to adopt or foster an animal or general information contact SAFE Avon Valley on 0409 000 259.
- Eliza Wynn
