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Comment by geowwy | Hacker News Reader

>>> They aren't chipped or tagged and there are no registration fees unlike dog ownership. There is no equivalent of a dog catcher or fines for people who let them wander.

In Western Australia it's now illegal to let your cat out the house unless it's chipped, tagged, tattooed and de-sexed. Other states will probably follow soon.

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In my SA suburb, there are limits on cat ownership and registration requirements. I've also done some work with the government raising community awareness of the importance of desexing pet cats.

Requiring chips and desexing seems like an easy, smart option to me - the cost is minimal in the lifetime of feeding and caring for a cat.

Hopefully compulsory pet de-sexing will be coming to South Australia soon as well. While I appreciate that dogs can be a hazard to people and livestock, I wish my local government took animal control seriously when cats were involved. They have a schedule of nearly 50 different fees and expiation payments relating to dogs on their website. In relation to cats they suggest people identify their pets but do not mandate it.

They have a $4000 fine for an unauthorised person killing a cat within 1km of a dwelling but nothing to penalise owners at all except for threat of destruction of unidentified animals.

Tattooed?

Edit: Finally I scrolled past all the "cat tattoos" on Google, and found out what this is about: http://www.mypetsdoctor.com/tattoos-indicate-spay-neuter

That's probably not the tattoo that's meant. When most cats get neutered/first shots, they get a tattoo in the ear with a unique serial number, which includes a vet to contact. That way if the cat gets lost it can be tracked down. It was the only "permanent" way of doing it before microchips.

http://www.icam-coalition.org/downloads/Identification%20met...

what's tagging (as opposed to chipping)?

They have to have tags attached to their collar to show they're registered.

Ah, of course, silly me. Our cats are chipped, tattooed, and desexed - just not tagged.

When I pay yearly dog registration my local council supplies numbered plastic ties (used to be disks) which must be attached to the dog's collar. They aren't attached to the dog itself so more like soldier dog tags than cattle tags.

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