To: Wollongong City Councillors and Wollongong City Council

I ask you to advocate to the NSW government in support of the Companion Animals (Control of Cats) Bill 2025, so cat owners are required to keep their cats contained on their property, and council officers have cat containment enforcement powers.

Effective cat containment:
a) Protects native wildlife and local biodiversity by reducing injury and death from domestic roaming cat predation.
b) Improves the wellbeing of owner-owned cats by reducing their risk of injury or death from vehicle strikes, dog attacks, ticks, snakebite, poisoning, wounds and infections from cat fights or contracting diseases.
c) Limits the rate of spread of cat-borne diseases that affect human health, such as toxoplasmosis.

I am very concerned uncontained pet cats are preying on native wildlife in our city, including in conservation areas. A single pet cat kills an estimated 186 vertebrate animals each year, mostly native animals. This equates to a horrific 5 million animals killed by roaming pet cats in Wollongong each year. Given Australia's species extinction crisis, we must act to stop the loss of our unique native animals.

Roaming pet cats also help spread diseases to humans. Human diseases related to cats cost Australia about $6 billion every year. That is equivalent to an average of $200 per person each year, or about $44 million per year across Wollongong ratepayers. One cat-parasite disease, toxoplasmosis, is well-known for its impacts on unborn babies leading to miscarriages and congenital defects, but toxoplasmosis is also implicated in traffic accidents, suicide and other mental health conditions. Experts estimate that somewhere between 23 and 66% of the Australian human population is infected. Cat containment would reduce human exposure and help break transmission cycles of pathogens carried by cats.

Cat containment also makes cats safer because sadly about two-in-three cat owners have lost pets in roaming-related accidents.

Cat containment is something that we can and should do here in NSW, as has been done in some other parts of Australia. I ask you to show your support for this cat containment bill and also to ask the NSW government to fund councils to support education, compliance and animal shelter services.