Disturbing fake letter claiming City Council is conducting a feral cat eradication program

Townsville, Australia: somebody has distributed a fake letter through the letterboxes of residents claiming that the city council is carrying out a feral cat baiting and trapping program on Bushland Beach.

The letter states that because there is no room in animal shelters, the feral cats will be trapped by baiting and then killed. It states that the program starts on September 22-23 and will carry on indefinitely. It’s basically a feral cat eradication program.

Fake Feral cat eradication program distributed to residents of Townsville, Australia.

Response

Understandably, it has caused consternation and upset among local residents. The council responded promptly. One response came from The Lost Pets Townsville Pet Coordinator, whose name is Heather, who notified residents on Facebook that the letter is a fake. Perhaps she distributed her response in other ways too; I don’t know. The fake letter is written on council headed paper. I’m reproducing her notification below which explains the situation.

IMAGE IS A COPY OF THE FAKE LETTER
A fake letter claiming Townsville City Council is conducting a baiting program in Bushland Beach has been distributed in letterboxes and online.
A Council spokesperson confirmed there were no feral animal baiting programs being conducted by Council in the Bushland Beach area.
‘This letter is a fake and it will be referred to Police, Queensland Health and Biosecurity Queensland, the spokesman said. Council is not conducting any baiting in the Bushland Beach area.’
The letter – on fake Townsville City Council letterhead – has been distributed in residents’ letterboxes and posted on social media.
Pet owners should remain vigilant over coming days in case baits have been laid by whoever is responsible for creating and distributing the fake letter. — Lost Pets Townsville Pet Coordinator ~ Heather

Backstory of a dislike of feral cats because they prey on native species

This is another attempt it seems by a cat hater to disturb people and get a message across that there are too many feral cats in Australia preying on native species. The problem is that people don’t know whether the person is going to put down poisoned baits and start killing cats.

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Comments

Disturbing fake letter claiming City Council is conducting a feral cat eradication program — 2 Comments

M E King on September 23, 2018 at 5:20 pm said:
It was either put up by cat haters to scare some common sense into cat owners that still think it’s safe to let their cats roam or someone looking to make cat haters look bad, as if they need any help.
As per usual the debate has lost sight of the real issue and that is pet overpopulation and the humans responsible for it.
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GaillenT on September 23, 2018 at 4:41 pm said:
This sounds more like some cat-lover that is trying to rile-up everyone to attack the Council. This is not a new tactic. It’s been done before to try to save the lives of feral cats. If someone was going to get rid of the cats they would just do it and not tell anyone it was even happening, let alone warn everyone in advance. You’re not thinking too clearly.
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