Former Hawke’s Bay regional councillor Rick Barker at the Clive dotterel monitoring area by a sign painted by Haumoana School students urging people to keep cats inside at night. Photo / Rafaella Melo
A former Hawke’s Bay political leader says councils and residents need to band together to ensure the region’s cats cannot go out at night to hunt.
Rick Barker, a former Hawke’s Bay Regional Council chairman and Cabinet minister, said a recent Hawke’s Bay Today article on the worst dotterel breeding season at Napier’s Bay View and Westshore should be a “wake-up call” for the region.
Cats were caught on camera destroying 18 of the 42 nests monitored with trail cameras by Save the Dotterels HB.
Of about 52 chicks hatched in the area this season, 14 survived to fledgling age.
Barker said he wanted to know what the region’s plan was to preserve the dotterels from cats for future generations.
“Whatever it takes is what should be done,” Barker said.
“Nothing should be off the table.”
He said the region needed to unite and had an obligation to protect the birds before they were lost forever.
“You’re either on the side of the birds, or you’re on the side of the predators.
“If you do nothing to stop the predators, you’re actually on their side.”
He said rules introduced by councils in Australia that require domestic cats to be kept indoors overnight and new subdivisions where cats are banned are things to consider.
Napier City Council (NCC) said it had not identified sufficient local evidence demonstrating the need for a cat bylaw in the city, but there were potential pathways for considering such rules in the future.
Barker said in the short term, cat owners needed to act responsibly to prevent further dotterel losses.
“Owners need to make sure that their pets are locked up at night.
“There’s no reason for them to be roaming around, eating up the last of our dotterels.”
He said it was no good just putting up signs to educate, because “cats don’t read”.
Barker said the dotterel decline should be treated as urgent.
“Are we going to take effective action to protect the dotterels or are we, with much handwringing, simply going to monitor their extinction?”
Save the Dotterels HB co-ordinator for the Napier area, Lynne Anderson, said local extinction was a real risk.
“Each season we see a decline in breeding pairs, so it is not rocket science to work out that if this trend continues they will eventually be gone from our beaches.”
Anderson said cat bylaws in part of Australia had taken years to implement but were effective.
“To change any social attitude takes time. Australia is years ahead of NZ on cat control – it has taken time there too,” she said.
“I fully support asking people to keep their cats inside at night. If this happened, a huge part of the problem would be remedied.”
Anderson said measures she believed would help in Hawke’s Bay include compulsory desexing of cats, microchipping, forcing breeders to be licensed, limiting the number of cats per household, making it an offence to abandon a cat, and making it a requirement to keep cats inside at night.
“These measures are pro-cat, not anti-cat,” she said.
“I fully realise that cats can be wonderful pets and are very precious to their owners.”
She said predation was one of several pressures and nests were also lost to rats, fires, vehicles and deliberate human interference.
Marilyn Scott, who co-ordinates the Waipureku/Clive dotterel monitoring programme, said cat predation had happened at beaches there but rats destroyed most early nests this season.
“We suspect the rats beat the cats to it this season as our trail cameras still caught several cats regularly prowling the beach, usually late at night.”
Scott said feral cats remained a major concern in the Clive area, which has signs urging people to keep pets under control, some painted by Haumoana School students.
“I would support a bylaw to require both cat and dog owners to have their pets microchipped and desexed and to keep them housed or enclosed at night.”
Department of Conservation landscape threats science manager Clayson Howell said it was up to councils to adopt bylaws to limit the number of cats kept by individuals and require cats to be microchipped and registered on the New Zealand Companion Animals Register.
“DoC supports responsible domestic cat ownership and believes we must be respectful of cat owners and their rights to keep companion animals. As part of this, we support desexing, microchipping and keeping cats indoors,” Howell said.
“Keeping cats indoors at night prevents them roaming and hunting and helps to protect native wildlife.”
A NCC spokeswoman said it was not progressing a cat-control bylaw, noting there was no statutory mandate for councils to regulate domestic cats, and the council must meet specific legal tests before introducing any new rule.
“To date, council has not identified sufficient local evidence demonstrating that domestic cat ownership in Napier is creating a level of nuisance, environmental harm, public health risk, or safety concern that would meet this statutory threshold.”
The council said the door was not closed on future consideration.
“Almost any bylaw could be explored if robust local data emerged showing significant and persistent impacts, if elected members formally requested investigation, or if central government introduced new legislation or clearer direction on cat management.”
Hawke’s Bay Regional Council said a long-term solution would include a national-level policy on cat management, covering domesticated and feral cats.