Cat trap warning

By Kath Gannaway
A LAUNCHING PLACE resident has warned cat owners to watch out for their pets after her pet moggie, Scamp, returned home with a copper wire noose around its neck.
She said her pet cat Scamp was out for about three-quarters of an hour on a recent Saturday afternoon and arrived back on her doorstep with the noose firmly around its neck.
“He had obviously been struggling and I believe if he hadn’t been wearing a collar he would have been garrotted,” she said.
Distressed and angry, Ms Barber told the Mail she had no doubt that someone was setting lethal traps for cats.
“If he hadn’t managed to free himself, I don’t think we would have seen him again,” she said.
“It’s terrible to think that someone would deliberately set out to trap a cat this way. A cat would not stick its head through a lure like this unless there was a bait there,” she said.
Ms Barber believes the incident may shed some light on the disappearance of other cats in the Alpine Boulevard area.
She said a number of other cats in the street went missing around 18 months ago, including one of her cats and one belonging to a neighbour.
Six months later a kitten she bought for her son disappeared along with a couple more cats in the street – all without trace.
Ms Barber said she keeps her cats indoors at night and added that while she could understand people not wanting neighbouring cats wandering onto their property, there were humane ways of dealing with the problem.
The Shire of Yarra Ranges has a dawn-to-dusk curfew on cats, but the shire’s community relations manger, James Martin, said there were limited remedies available to deal with wandering cats.
“Owners are encouraged to make sure their cats remain on their property, but we also recognise that they are more difficult animals to manage in that regard,” he said.
“We would certainly not condone and would be very disappointed if people were setting traps that would harm cats, dogs or other wildlife.
“If that is happening and it is a cruelty matter, the RSPCA would have jurisdiction over that.”
Mr Martin said the shire would encourage residents who have unwanted cats coming onto their property to first talk with the cat owner about the problem.
If that failed, humane cat traps were available from the shire and property owners could also lodge an objection notice against the cat’s owner to stop it from coming onto their property.
Ms Barber said her concern was to make neighbours aware that their cats were in danger.
She urged anyone in the area whose cat disappeared to contact the Shire of Yarra Ranges’ ranger.