THE chair of an expert commission whose report on feline welfare led to media claims that the SNP were looking at “banning cats in Scotland” has spoken out – saying the report suggested no such thing.
Professor Cathy Dwyer, the chair of the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission (SAWC), further said that media reports around the cat welfare document could make it more difficult to get “sensible reflection” on its actual recommendations.
It comes after media attention on the SAWC’s “Responsible ownership and care of domestic cats in Scotland” report snowballed into headline claims that SNP ministers were “considering banning cats”.
First Minister John Swinney was forced to rule out a ban on the popular pet after being asked about the reports by multiple media outlets on Monday.
Professor Dwyer, who is also the director of the Jeanne Marchig International Centre for Animal Welfare Education at Edinburgh University’s Royal Dick School of Veterinary Medicine, said that the SAWC report “did not suggest banning cat ownership”.
“The SAWC report offered various recommendations for responsible cat ownership, which mostly focused on the welfare of cats themselves (such as microchipping, neutering, vaccination etc), although we did also consider the wider impacts of cats on other species,” Dwyer explained. “It did not suggest banning cat ownership.
“A central component of our work is to consider the welfare of all sentient animals, which includes wild animals. Owned cats also overlap with a population of stray and feral cats, and may contribute to these populations.
“There is good evidence that these animals have very poor welfare – the lifespan of a feral cat is only five years and mortality of feral kittens is estimated to be 80%.
“The media reports focused very narrowly on recommendations that Scottish Government consider additional research to understand the impact of domestic cats on these species and offered some suggestions for cat containment, specifically in these vulnerable areas.”
The SAWC report did float the suggestion that future housing developments in certain rural areas could have a stipulation against cat ownership in areas where endangered bird species live.
It recommended that the Government ask environment agency NatureScot to produce a report looking at the “advantages and disadvantages for wildlife” of ideas such as cat containment areas.
“Cat ownership is increasing in the UK and there may be areas of Scotland where this is going to impact on species survival. These are serious issues and where we may need to have proper and rational conversations about whether cats need to be restricted in some way to allow species to recover or thrive.
“To suggest that wildlife protection must be confrontational to cat ownership is unhelpful.”
Dwyer further said that, moving forward, it would “be good to see more engagement with the serious findings of the work, especially the focus on improving the welfare of various groups of cats”.
Asked what could be done to correct misinformation and encourage a more constructive discussion, the professor said: “Contextualising the reasons behind the recommendations in the report would help see the suggestions in the light of the wider evidence, and understand why responsible cat ownership is needed.
“For example, around such issues as the largely uncontrolled breeding of cats (most kittens are the result of accidental matings), the very poor welfare of feral cats (and the large numbers of these animals that appear to live in rural parts of Scotland), and numbers of wildlife that may be killed by cats.
“Some of these issues are important for the welfare of cats themselves, so the report did not only focus on wildlife interactions but was concerned about the lives of the cats too.
“A lot of effort has also gone into ensuring we still have iconic Scottish wildcats in the UK/Scotland.
“If we want these animals to remain in Scotland, then we do need to consider where the risks are and what may need to be done to improve the situation.”
