Forest & Bird says the Taupō District Council is copping out of an opportunity to take control of cats by claiming it is waiting for direction from central government.

Last week, the council adopted a number of reviewed bylaws, including an amended Animals Bylaw. But Forest & Bird regional conservation manager Amelia Geary says the council could have and should have taken the opportunity to include cat management in the bylaw.

A council ad hoc committee met in March to consider amending several bylaws, including the Animals Bylaw and its Control of Dogs Bylaw and Policy. While the committee heeded the calls of Nukuhau residents not to go ahead with a proposed off-leash dog exercise area in the Jarden Mile Reserve and stormwater gully, it declined to adopt a proposed bylaw amendment that would have given it power to better manage cats.

Local volunteer pest-trapper Roel Michels told the committee that if all cats were required to be microchipped, that would make it easier to quickly reunite cats caught in traps, which have to be caught alive, with their owners. He also thought that ideally domestic cats should be sterilised and kept inside at night.

"Longer term, we'd like to have no unwanted cats. A lot of cats go far around the neighbourhood and predate quite a bit and cause a lot of problems.

"If cats could be sterilised when they're not wanted for breeding that would be a good thing as well and also eliminated from areas of high biodiversity values because they can do a lot of harm."

Ms Geary said her organisation also wanted to see some sort of cat management in the Taupō District, with other councils around the country actively engaging in cat management through bylaw reviews.

Forest & Bird's submission on the draft bylaw supported the regulation of cats but wanted tighter, more specific clauses for the council to enforce - compulsory desexing and microchipping and a limit of three cats per household. Ms Geary says this is nothing controversial and is already done in Palmerston North and Whanganui.

"People are losing their tolerance for issues created by unregulated cats."

Ms Geary says Forest & Bird was not asking councils to do anything that would be too difficult to regulate, such as making it mandatory to keep cats inside at night.

"Regulating cats isn't anything controversial.

"Palmerston North City Council in 2018 brought in mandatory microchipping and desexing and a three cat limit and nobody batted an eyelid. It doesn't have to be onerous on behalf of the council, it just requires a bit of leadership to get it over the line."

Ms Geary's analysis of the submissions on the Animals Bylaw were that 92 per cent of the 41 respondents to the bylaw consultation supported the regulation of cats.

But the council officer's report to the ad hoc committee concluded that including cats in the bylaw "may lead to unrealistic expectations that council will step in and undertake compliance in response to minor cat-related issues."

At the hearing, council corporate solicitor Nigel McAdie recommended the committee withdraw cats from the bylaw, saying the issue that the council was attempting to control had not been sufficiently identified.

"There needs to be some direction from central government. It's very difficult for local government to introduce controls on cats given the statutory provisions to them."

He acknowledged that although a cat bylaw had been introduced in Wellington there was "some difficulty" (which he did not specify) with it and added that under the Local Government Act there was a question of whether cats were even within a council's power.

But Ms Geary rubbished the council's position saying the "difficulty" in Wellington was irrelevant in Taupō's case as the Taupō District Council was not being asked to eradicate cat colonies, as is being undertaken in Wellington.

She says the legal advice should have been obtained before the bylaw review was ever put out for consultation and doing so without it had resulted in the council "leading the public up the garden path".

The Animals Bylaw was one of six bylaws adopted last week. They will come into force on July 1.

Credit: Nzherald.co.nz