Police were ordered to stop feeding a stable cat because the cat food was an unnecessary expense as the cat should find his own food.
Western Australia: There are mounted police in the Western Australia police force. Of course the horses are stabled and of course there has to be a stable cat. He is Lewis and he is very cute. And he is very useful because he is seen to be munching on rodents. He’s effective. He’s a genuine working cat. It is nice too that horses and cats get on well usually. The horse in the photo seems to like Lewis. Therefore Lewis provides companionship for the horses too.
The police buy him cat food as remuneration for his work. It costs less than AUS$10 per week. That’s a bit more than an Australian dollar a day. It sounds pretty cheap to me but the powers that be, those who control the police budget, have deemed the expense too much and they have ordered the mounted police to stop feeding Lewis. They also hope that Lewis will catch more rodents if he is starving. I am not sure that it will work and in any case it is a bit cruel and mean. After all Lewis is doing useful work. He has earned his food. Nonetheless that is the management’s decision.
The management felt that Lewis was not working hard enough it seems and was more a pet than a working cat. He needed to justify the expenditure of taxpayers’ money.
The mounted police themselves have vowed to pay for his food themselves out of their wages. This is a nice response. Also the public funding of his food will be scaled back slowly.
Comment: It is very nice to see a genuine working cat appreciated amongst the employees of a government department. To even think about removing his food is petty. Either Lewis is effective or he is not. If he is ineffective as a rodent catcher then he is a pet and he should be treated as such and his food bought by the employees. However, as far as I can tell he is effective in his role and therefore he should be rewarded and feed from the general police budget. Perhaps this is a PR exercise to show the public that the police are serious about budget controls or perhaps some cat haters have complained.
Source: thewest.com.au
Its a shame that ( THAT THE POWERS THAT BE HAVENT GOT BETTER THINGS TO CONCERN THEMSELVES WITH/ Good on the cat lovers for feeding them , an its company for the Horses.WOULD THE POWERS THAT BE LIKE TO EAT THE SAME THING EVERYDAY.. GO GET A LIFE YOU HORRIBLE CAT HATERS
Thanks Coll. We are with you on this.
The Australian government is infected with the cat-hating mental virus. The best antidote is to force the haters to spend a little time with some kittens, some mama cats with kittens, some purring cats. It doesn’t take long to end the virus if the hater has a heart.
Seriously, how petty can it get?
Pretty damn petty!
There seems to be quite a bit of animal abuse in general in Australia. I don’t know if it’s a “wild west” mentality, so to speak, or what.
I feel that as there was never a wild cat species of any description on the continent, the Australian people don’t think cats belong there at all as they are killing their native species. They generally take a hardline against outside domestic cats and feral cats.
I would hope the employees would simply bring in a bag of food. Even a working mouser does better when supplemented.
Barn cats are nearly a necessity in any livestock operation from chickens to cattle and horses where grain is stored and especially where leather tack is stored. Rodents can and will chew through wiring causing shorts and fires.
There are several barn cat programs here and they provide homes to feral S/N cats who are provided a warm safe shelter and plenty of food.
Cats are also excellent at keeping birds from nesting in farm buildings. The feces from birds can contaminate feed and water just like rodents. If they go to a bait system they’ll find it costs more than buying food for several cats and can be much less efficient and dangerous to animals not intended to eat the bait.
And lets add to this a cat that is accustomed to being at least supplemented. I really wish everyone would boycott Australian and any products or tourism or movies with Australian actors, singers just anything Australian. The other poster was smack on they are infected with a cat hating virus. The overpopulation of cats is 100% human caused because of the failure to S/N on the part of Australians themselves. At this point they look like a pack of degenerates.