Push the City to implement mandatory cat & dog sterilisation in Cape Town - only registered breeders to be excluded.

A huge unregulated domestic animal population exists in the Cape Town metropole – at least a quarter of a million dogs, according to the City of Cape Town’s own estimates. Tens of thousands of cats are also consistently abandoned and left to breed.

Fortunately, you can make a difference. Let our voices be heard!

Cape Town’s stray and neglected cat and dog populations live a miserable existence, struggling to scavenge enough food, and succumbing to disease, cold and starvation. They are infected with distemper, parvo virus, feline aids and leukaemia, which put other animals at risk. They also carry and spread human diseases costing the City millions of Rands to treat, and should rabies reach Cape Town they would carry it too, making it very difficult to control deadly rabies epidemics. Well-managed cities elsewhere are able to issue breeding permits and regulate domestic animal numbers – indeed, the presence of countless strays is indicative of ‘third world’ conditions.

A mandatory sterilisation law for Cape Town dog and cat owners is crucial in enabling animal welfare groups to solve the problems associated with the animal over population epidemic - without it animal welfare is all but impossible to implement and considering how this issue impacts significantly on quality of life, tourism, health and business development, a mandatory sterilisation by-law can truly make Cape Town a “better place to live” and a “better place to visit”. Please sign our petition!

Currently, enormous resources are wasted as the various animal welfare organisations struggle to sterilize and regulate the huge numbers of dogs and cats in the informal settlements while shelters are also inundated with thousands of unwanted pets from the leafy suburbs.

The clauses in the existing by-law simply don’t go far enough, especially as there are currently only nine law enforcement officers for the entire City of Cape Town who are able to enforce them. Mandatory sterilization would provide animal welfare organisations with the tools they need to tackle the domestic animal overpopulation, a problem exacerbated by thousands of unregulated backyard breeders. Mandatory sterilization would also assist in the battle against the scourge of dog-fighting and other unspeakable acts of cruelty.

Cities around the world impose strict sterilisation by-laws, and even other South African municipalities, such as Kannaland and Swellendam of the Western Cape have mandatory sterilisation by-laws. Why not Cape Town, where the problem is most severe?

It’s time the City of Cape Town responded to the problem with new legislation for mandatory dog and cat sterilisation. Let our voices be heard!

Supported by SA.MAST & the Brigitte Bardot Foundation

www.samast.co.za / samast@samast.co.za