Northland Cats in Balance are happy to work with other groups who are working towards the same goal. With this in mind, it is important to build a network of like-minded people to create a web of support. Please let us know if you would like us to add a link to your site.
Feline Rights New Zealand
Feline Rights New Zealand is a response to ongoing anti-Cat propaganda in the mainstream media being spread by eco-extremist organisations including The Morgan Foundation, Forest and Bird, Wellington City Council, Polhill Restoration Group, and others soon to be named on this site. Our mission is to seek out and counteract the ongoing propaganda intended to demonize Cats, provide an alternative to educate citizens and counteract the lies being spread about Cats by eco-extremists and the complicit factions of the mainstream media in New Zealand.
We also seek to keep the public informed of the plans to place restrictions on Cats and restrictions on citizens who keep Cats by Local Government and the New Zealand Government, and actively oppose what they are trying to do. Together we will create a network amongst those of us who love Cats, share ideas, co-ordinate political strategy and tactics to defeat the eco-extremists who’s ultimate aim is to deny citizens of their right to keep Cats and put as many Cats to death as they can.
Right now, the intention is to get the basic information Cat lovers need to know out on the web, and bring Cat lovers together to actively oppose the eco-extremism which now is a clear and present threat to us and our families.
New Zealand Cat Foundation
MISSION : To educate and assist people throughout New Zealand as to the psychological and physiological health benefits of caring for cats as pets.
To foster and encourage the kind and humane treatment of cats and to prevent and discourage cruelty to and harsh and thoughtless treatment of cats so as to enhance the general health of the community.
To establish and maintain facilities for the care of cats particularly those in need of veterinary treatment. Importantly, to de-sex community cats to prevent their proliferation in the most kindly and humane way possible.
Latest Press releases of Northland Cats in Balance:
“Yes, they did vote – but again without a mandate”
by Northland Cats in Balance
August 23, 2019
Russell, Bay of Islands
Recent reports on how councillors of FNDC apparently misunderstand essential governance terms like transparency or accountability highlight the need for them to change the performance of their duty. It seems that in this regard there is a lot of room for improvement especially for FNDC’s Deputy Mayor:
On 13/7/2019 the “Northern Advocate” informed that Tania McInnes had received “considerable flak” from the Bay of Islands cat lobby for having voted at a LGNZ conference two years ago without previous consultation with her communities or even Council in favour of a highly debatable cat management remit. Therefore FNDC decided at a Council meeting on 27/6/2019 to abstain from voting at the LGNZ conference in Wellington in July this year due to the lack of consultation time. But only a week later, when an opposing councillor was away on holiday, this decision was rescinded.
How is it possible that 11 days prior to the conference there was not sufficient time for consultation with the public but then suddenly only 4 days before the conference our councillors believed they got a mandate out of the blue? That is hardly what you could call transparency.
On 23/7/2019 an article in the “Northland Age” described the issue Tania McInnes has taken with the a.m.“Northern Advocate”-report: “Council did indeed vote on the remits,” she said. “Secondly, the remit regarding cats that I voted to support, on behalf of council was not to give councils more cat controls. The motion was that LGNZ lobby the government on the importance of implementing the final version of a “national cat management strategy”.
The Deputy mayor’s first statement that Council this year indeed voted, is correct, although she shouldn’t be proud of it. The second, however is wrong and clearly shows again why she had received “considerable flak from the cat people”:
At the 2017 LGNZ conference she had no mandate to vote on the cat management remit whatsoever. Neither from the public nor from council. Her vote was merely a conscience vote and, with a voting result of 51:49 it was most probably the decisive one. Because of her connections with “Focus Paihia”, a business organisation she and her partner had founded in 2010 and with her strong ties to “Bay Bush Action”, an environmentalist group, she had clearly personal interests in this vote she had never declared.
Moreover: Everyone who knows about the final version of the NCMS is aware what her vote really meant: Nothing else than a “fait accompli” or confronting her people with accomplished facts, but it certainly doesn’t reflect transparency, considering the facts that the “final version” will include:
Mandatory micro chipping, curfew for cats, trapping and destruction of cats, cat rangers and registration of cats. This will affect thousands of families of the Far North and their pets. The so-called “Northland Pest Control Guidelines 2016”, drawn up by NZ Landcare Trust and in accordance with NRC, state that a trapped stray cat (all companion cats can become stray at any time!) should be “shot with a firearm (taking care not to destroy the trap too!)”. How can a shot cat be rehomed whose micro chip didn’t matter at all in the first place?
This winter Northland is facing a rat and stoat plague: Who in his right mind would want to keep the traditional rodent hunter indoors but to use rat poison instead of the natural predator who by doing so actually saves the lives of thousands of birds?
In this context it is revealing that NRC has, by declaring Stray Cats pests, also violated existing law: The “Animal Welfare Act” clearly protects Companion and Stray Cats. Allowing for this, “implementing the final version” of the “national cat management strategy” as Ms McInnes says, makes unfortunately a lot of sense, doesn’t it? And nobody should ever say again that our two councils would not cooperate – even if only for the worse.
Tania McInnes will be standing for Mayor in this year’s October elections.
Northland Cats in Balance 