Cat rescuers lament surge in alleged abandonments
Every year, independent cat rescuer Michelle Shoo keeps track of the felines she takes in by naming them according to letters of the alphabet.
It is only August, but the 35-year-old talent development manager has already run through A to Z once, landing on I again. This marks her 35th case for 2024.
“There’s been a surge in abandonments as it seems like people have misunderstood the laws, (thinking) that they can keep only two cats,” said Ms Shoo, who receives requests every week from those wishing to offload their cats.
Ms Shoo – and other rescuers like her – attests that the number of alleged abandonment cases they handle has surged since the announcements about the Cat Management Framework in December 2023 and May 2024.
“I think what people need to know is that they can keep all their cats if the cats are licensed,” Ms Shoo said.
This is echoed by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), which called on the authorities to do more to tell pet owners about the flexibility of the two-year grace period that the Cat Management Framework affords them. This will deter owners from abandoning their additional cats.
Come Sept 1, pet owners can legally keep up to two cats in an HDB flat and up to three cats for each private residence.
They will be given two years to meet licensing and microchipping requirements, which will help the authorities to better trace pet cats, respond to disease outbreaks, and “hold irresponsible cat owners to greater account if they abandon, neglect or abuse their cats”.
Those with more cats than permitted can keep all their existing pet cats if they license them within the transition period.
Animal welfare group Causes for Animals estimates that it now sees one case of abandonment a week, up from one case every two weeks in 2023. Singapore Cat Feeders shared similar numbers, with one case a week compared with once a month previously.
The administrator of public Facebook group Sayang Our Singapore’s Community Cats (Sayang), who wanted to be known only as Eliza, said that between January and July 2024, the group received reports of 33 unique alleged abandonment cases. This is up from the 23 cases during the same period in 2023. These numbers exclude cases that may have been reposted from or posted in other similar group pages.
“It is likely that abandonment cases will continue to increase and surpass the number of cases reported in 2023,” said the 47-year-old, a former public servant.
The Cat Welfare Society (CWS) noted an increase in the number of reports of alleged cat abandonment it has received since the public consultation on cat management was launched in 2023.
“We attribute this to misinformation and misunderstanding on the existing position of the cat ban, and the information that there will be a fetter on numbers of cats permitted in homes,” said the charity.
Many cases of abandonment go unreported and unresolved, say rescuers, with only those that get posted on social media receiving attention, if any.
Even then, most rescuers prefer to focus their efforts on attending to and rehoming the cats they handle, as opposed to lodging a report with the authorities. They say having a case fulfil the various criteria for the ensuing investigative process is time-consuming, and may not lead to a conclusion at all.
In cases of alleged animal cruelty, including abandonments, the National Parks Board’s Animal and Veterinary Service (AVS) initiates an investigative process that involves gathering evidence, interviews and statements from suspects and witnesses, and veterinary reports (and post-mortem results, if applicable), as well as information from other government agencies.
Those who are found guilty of failure in their duty of care to their pets, including abandoning them, can be charged under the Animals and Birds Act.
First-time offenders who fail in the duty of care to their pets may face a fine of up to $10,000, a jail term of up to 12 months, or both.
According to AVS, about 95 per cent of reported cases of abandonment cannot be substantiated due to a lack of information required for investigation.
Official numbers from AVS show a steady increase in the number of abandonment cases being investigated over the years.
In 2023 – the worst year for animals in more than a decade – SPCA dealt with 137 abandonment cases involving 285 animals, twice that in 2022. The number of animals abandoned in previous years was about 70 on average. Cats made up the largest group, with a total of 127, comprising about 45 per cent of the animals abandoned.
In the first half of 2024, SPCA logged 63 cases of cat abandonment which were either suspected or confirmed.
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