Animal Welfare League joins Tamworth council in calls for change

Animal Welfare League NSW Tamworth branch president Jenny Campbell says the issue has become 10 times worse since the state government made changes to the Companion Animals Act last year.

"We were taking a step forward here and there and now we've taken 10 steps back. It's so sad," Ms Campbell said.

"It's misery for our branch because it's endless."

The state parliament's Companion Animals Amendment (Rehoming Animals) Act 2022 introduced a mandate expanding local governments' role in rehoming surrendered animals.

Tamworth council's director of liveable communities Gina Vereker told a parliamentary inquiry earlier this week the mandate has "no doubt saved thousands of adoptable cats and dogs from unnecessary euthanasia".

But she said the mandate didn't come with any funding, putting enormous strain on local councils and volunteer organisations across the state.

Tamworth council runs the Paws for Life animal shelter for dogs and works with Animal Welfare League NSW to rehome the region's cats.

Ms Campbell told the Leader she supports Ms Vereker's efforts to get state funding for rehoming adoptable animals, as well as mandating the desexing of cats.

"Asking us to take on two cats and three litters of kittens is not the solution, and we can't do it, we just can't do that," she said.

"The only way we're going to cut the numbers is if people desex their cats, and not ring me six months later saying they couldn't afford it then and their cat's had three litters since."

The branch president said the main roadblock to fixing the region's feral cat problem was the paltry amount of funding available to support volunteer organisations' desexing programs.

"It's the cost of desexing. We help people on pensions who don't have any income or are homeless, and we do whatever we can financially to help through our subsidy program," Ms Campbell said.

"With a good desexing program and with councils on board, there's going to be lower numbers of cats breeding, and I know Gina is well on board with that. Animals adopted from the [council] pound are all vaccinated and desexed and microchipped, and that's a great start."

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