A better way forward for community cats in South Australia

Community cat programs deliver better outcomes for cats, councils, and the communities they live in.

Earlier this year, PetRescue member organisation Cat Adoption Foundation (CAF) shared results from the first four months of their targeted desexing program, established in partnership with the City of Salisbury and Adelaide Northern Veterinary Group (ANVG).

The group successfully desexed 186 community cats in the period from November 2024 to April 2025.

Virginie Ducruc from Cat Adoption Foundation and Brad Scholefield from Salisbury Council told us more about the program, which continues to run this financial year, and its impact so far.

 

What does the program involve?

The first phase of the program involves the coordination of desexing, vaccination, and microchipping services provided by ANVG. After this, the incredible folks at Cat Adoption Foundation work with the local community to register and rehome cats where suitable, either with local residents already feeding them or with new adopters.

Thanks to the kindness and generosity of local residents who volunteered their time to trap, transport and care for cats, the majority of the desexing was achieved in the first few months of the program’s inception. 

 

What have been the results so far?

During the November to April period that the paper focused on, 186 cats were desexed, with a third of the cats registered and rehomed with local residents. Another third are from sites that are still in progress under the pilot.

The remaining third found new homes, like Dexter, whose family drove two hours each way to meet him. They say, ‘Dexter is the most beautiful boy... He has his very own chair!’

 

  

 

What have been the positive outcomes of the program so far? 

Better outcomes for cats, while cutting council costs

Virginie tells us the biggest benefit of the program so far has been the positive impact on the welfare of cats, as they’re being desexed, vaccinated and microchipped on site, instead of needing to be transported to a facility where they’re contributing to an already overwhelmed system with limited capacity.  

“It's a lot more cost-effective to desex on site because, in shelters, you have to pay for your fixed facility, and you have to pay for labour. So engagement with the community is really essential to deliver this program, which is out of the goodness of people’s hearts, but you can see it as being similar to long-running rescue groups, that this exists enough in the community to be able to achieve this,” Virginie tells us. 

 

Positive engagement with the community

In addition to the improvement to cat welfare and the program’s cost-effectiveness, both the rescue group and Salisbury Council have seen a positive impact on community engagement. 

“We’ve harnessed this positive approach, with positive engagement with the community as well, which is essential in delivering this program. It changes the way that people perceive the council, and has helped them perceive it in a better light.” Virginie shares.

Brad agrees, adding, “As the program is being run by an agency (CAF) whose main goal is cat welfare, there is already a high degree of trust from households that the program will result in a positive outcome for both them and their cats.

Our partnership with CAF has demonstrated our commitment to both residents' well-being and cat welfare, and this has challenged preconceived ideas in the community about Council predominantly addressing cat nuisance from an enforcement perspective. Overall, community feedback has been positive toward the Council. There is an increased understanding that we are there to help solve the problem rather than just enforce rules. The majority of residents have welcomed this type of action from us.”

 

Better management of community cats

Further to this, the transition from cats being unowned to owned means that they can more easily be managed.

“People are very happy, in the vast majority, to take ownership of these cats. So we are transferring a lot of unowned cats to owned as well, where people are taking legal responsibility for these cats, and it's good for everyone because then these cats can be managed. If they cause nuisance further down the line, then the council has recourse, but the aim is that that wouldn’t be happening because we've reduced the number, stabilised the population, and people understand that it's better that way than letting it run out of control with breeding and without intervention,” Virginie tells us. 

The council has also received positive feedback from local community members living near community cat colonies. “As the program is targeted, we are seeing a direct positive outcome for residents in the council area. Several residents have contacted us since the program began to thank us for taking this approach. It has helped them to manage a situation that was continually escalating,” shared Brad.

 

Bringing the cat-loving community together 

Support from the local community has been crucial to help these cats receive the desexing surgery and vet treatment necessary, as well as helping to rehome them into loving homes in many cases. 

Virginie describes the incredible support and dedication of the local community. 

“The bulk of the colony of 50 cats described in the paper was desexed over six weeks. So we had regular appointments, three appointments per week, sometimes we had up to six. And I just gave this group of people traps, and they were there at the vet, they were picking up the cats, and making sure they were recovering. It's quite impressive, I just had to do the organising; I didn't have to mobilise all my time to go there. 

Sometimes people even want to help with other sites, so I get them to do some driving from other sites. Positively engaging with the community with that little bit of funding for each cat is pretty much magical.” 

 

Looking into the future

When asked about her hopes for the impact of the paper and the results the group has achieved, in South Australian animal management and beyond, Virginie shares; 

“It's offering a lot more cost-effective way to deal with cats than if they were going to a fixed facility like a pound, and I think because of that, it's very replicable. It's just a little bit of know-how, probably you would need a little bit of training, like perhaps setting up something quite standard that could help the council, and approaching the community in developing that informal foster care network. 

We hope that we'll start chatting to a lot of councils in South Australia and be able to replicate this model, which is very adaptable, essentially. We're looking forward to the council seeing the long-term impact, and we’re looking forward to that ongoing partnership and being able to engage in conversation with other councils as well.”

 

What were CAF and Salisbury’s learnings from this program that could help others in the sector?

Virginie would like to spread awareness to others in the sector that “this type of program is possible, and we might as well leverage it with a little bit of funding to deliver a good cat management program.” A key learning for her was how the cat-loving community in her area were able to mobilise to help cats.

“The community is ready to help, and they just need a little leg up. I think most people want to be responsible cat owners; they're already taking responsibility for feeding these cats, so they're already halfway there, so it's just getting them a little support to go all the way and making sure they’re not finding themselves in a situation they can't control.”

She encourages other councils to establish community cat programs and reassures them that it isn’t an overly complicated process.

“With Salisbury, it's a very small team plus the community, plus vets, they're happy to work with us. So it's not too complicated to set up; it is possible. We're looking forward to the council seeing the long-term impact of the program, and continuing to use the partnership we've got with Salisbury as an example going forward, so we can show that this is what happens a year down the line, and two years down the line. It's a really long-term project, and it's hard to see the results straight away, but then you see fewer and fewer community cats over time.”

From a council perspective, Brad tells us that Salisbury’s main learnings so far have been;

“Cat breeding and nuisance issues are consistent across the sector, and the standard approach over the past 20 years has been unsuccessful. Our first learning is that we need to be open to alternative solutions, to push boundaries and adopt new ideas to have a long-term impact.

Our second learning is that we don't need to find a solution alone. Partnering with other organisations can assist us to consider an issue from a different perspective, to access different resources, and adopt alternative communication methods.”

It’s incredible to see a rescue group, vet, council and community working collaboratively together to achieve better outcomes for cats, and we can’t wait to hear about more community cat programs being established around Australia in the future.

 

Do you have any questions, comments or feedback? Let us know at info@petrescue.org.au. 

 

Further reading

You can read the full paper published by Cat Adoption Foundation here. 

Read about how a pilot community cat program saved Banyule council $440K.

Read about Bendigo Animal Relief Centre’s community cat program, which has desexed over 1,000 cats.

 

Are you a cat-loving member of the community who wants to create positive change?

Support local desexing efforts, or rally your neighbours to start one. You can also send this article to your local council.

 

Are you from a council and want to create positive change for cats and their guardians?

Share CAF’s paper with decision-makers, connect with local rescue groups and vets to start your own community cat program, and explore grant funding (including available grants in Victoria).

 

Banner image credit: Aleksandr Nadyojin via Pexels