Mayor chimes in on one town’s 30-year cat ban
When residents of Halls Gap, Victoria, were first handed a cat ownership ban in 1993, they were not immediately onboard with the scheme.
However, according to now-Halls Gap Community president David Witham, in the three decades since the rule was imposed, most have come around to the idea.
The ban - which would see anyone caught with a feline face a fine of up to $100 - first came into effect as part of the region’s move to protect the sanctuary of the Grampians Ranges, an area also known as Gariwerd.
Similar restrictions aren’t anything new in Australia, with a number of other Victorian councils having placed their own 24-hour curfews on cats, but Halls Gap’s ruling is one of only a few to go so far as to ban ownership entirely.
Halls Gap is situated in the Grampians National Park, in the heart of a place that is also home to some of Australia’s most known and most threatened species. The ban served as an attempt to protect those species, which included the likes of vulnerable flora and fauna, including bandicoots and gliders.
And while the ban was introduced late in 1993, and was incorporated into the Northern Grampians Shire Council’s local laws, no-one can say for certain whether or not it has had any effect.
The impact of domestic cats on native wildlife is well documented, with a study previously revealing that over 340 million native animals are killed by them each and every year.
And so, many believed that Halls Gap might have seen such figures drop for the area over the course of the three decades, but that was not the case.
Since the restriction was introduced in 1993, no formal survey - by either local or state government - has been conducted, so any potential success remains an unknown factor.
However, Mayor Kevin Ewert - who joined the council 10 years after the cat ban came into effect - told ABC that it “must be working”, as there weren’t many cats lingering around, and that the locals couldn’t have minded too much.
“Because of the myriad of native animals that are living [in] the Grampians, I think most people probably think it’s a good thing,” he added.
But as Witham noted, the area’s signage for the ban had come under fire a number of times, with vandals setting their sights on their controversial canvases.
There was still hope for the future of their ‘project’, with Witham also mentioning that “the most recent time the shire have put the cat free zone signs back up - they're still up, which is promising.”
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