21/11/2019 - The Amendments to the Cat Management Act have been tabled in State Parliament and will probably be debated next week. Landcare Tasmania put a submission on the proposed Cat Management Act amendments in October and although we welcome the initiatives of the draft amendments, our submission highlighted several gaps not addressed by the changes that will continue to allow cats to have impacts across Tasmania's landscapes. 
Our concerns are outlined in our submission and include:
- Cat containment and lack of addressing roaming cats
- No statewide regulation
- Compulsory cat registration
- Cat management facility shortfalls
- Limitations in humane destruction Range
- No provisions for landscape scale cat control
The full submission is HERE:
The TCT is also proposing an amendment to the Cat Management Act to address roaming domestic or pet cats. The proposal is supported by Landcare Tasmania and a growing list of organisations with an interest in wildlife and the welfare of cats. The amendment creates an offence of having a domestic cat roaming outside the owners property, which is punishable by fines of up to $3300.
This provision will cover cats entering private land and a myriad of areas of public land that are not reserved land (The act does already cover reserved land). Our proposed amendment allows an owner to take their cat to another private property with the owner's consent or into public land (e.g. taking it to the vet) if it is on a lead or in a secure crate - just like dogs. Please sign the petition calling for laws to control roaming cats at: http://www.tasconservation.org.au/stop-roaming-cats