The tiny New Zealand coastal village of Omaui is divided over a proposed plan that would ultimately ban residents from owning cats.
The plan, which is the work of regional conservation council Environment Southland, is aimed at protecting native wildlife and would not require residents to give up the cats they already own, the Otago Daily Times reports.
But residents would not be able to obtain any new cats, meaning that the village’s feline population would die off over time. Additionally, people who already have cats would be required to have their pets spayed or neutered, registered and given a microchip ID.
“So your cat can live out its natural life at Omaui happily doing what it’s doing,” Ali Meade of Environment Southland told the New Zealand-based site Newshub. “But then when it dies, you wouldn’t be able to replace it.”
Omaui has a population of only 35 people and “seven or eight” cats, according to The New York Times. The outlet noted that new residents moving to Omaui would not be permitted to bring cats with them.
Meade told HuffPost in an email that “education and advocacy” would be the first step for cat owners who didn’t follow the proposal. She also said that her group would help people “re-home cats outside the area” if necessary.
The proposal is part of a larger “pest plan” that also includes provisions aimed at curbing a wide range of nonnative plants and animals, including weasels, feral pigs and goats, hedgehogs and house mice. But it’s the proposed domestic cat rule that’s been causing the most controversy.
New Zealand’s unique wildlife evolved without the threat of mammalian predators, meaning that native birds and reptiles are especially vulnerable to introduced predators like cats. And Omaui is an area especially rich with nature and wildlife. John Collins, chairman of the Omaui Landcare Charitable Trust, has told multiple media outlets it’s not that people who want the ban are “cat haters,” but rather that the area’s native wildlife is especially in need of protection.
Meade told HuffPost that Environment Southland developed the proposal after working with the land care trust and consulting with the local community.
When asked why the group didn’t simply require people to keep cats indoors or within an enclosed outdoor area, rather than banning them outright, she said that a full ban “was the option the community asked us to propose.”
But not all members of the community support the idea. Omaui residents opposing the proposed ban cite not only their own love for cats but also the vital pest control they say their feline companions provide.
“It doesn’t matter how many [rodents] I trap and poison, more just keep coming in from the bush,” Nico Jarvis told the Otago Daily Times. “They chew into your house, you can’t get rid of them. If I cannot have a cat, it almost becomes unhealthy for me to live in my house.”
“It’s like a police state,” she added.
This story has been updated with comments from Ali Meade.