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Wednesday, December 12, 2007
AVA replies
We got a reply from AVA about a few things we enquired about.
First of all, they DID send out letters to the town councils to express MND and AVA's support for sterilisation. They felt that sterilisation and killing the cats were both necessary components of a community cat programme.
The AVA also encouraged the town councils to work with caregivers and mentioned that the AVA was prepared to give a sterilisation subsidy and whom to call for more information. This letter was apparently sent out to all the town councils in April!
I'm certainly delighted to hear that the AVA is willing to sponsor sterilisations, and perhaps even more importantly, to support sterilisation AND working with caregivers. They've asked the town council to approach them for more information on the programme and for further information on the subsidies. Now the ball is really in the town council's court. Caregivers can (and should) speak with their TCs about getting this programme on the road!
Secondly, the AVA felt that it would be a breach of confidentiality to give out the details of complainants in private estates whom borrow cat traps. What we asked was that if someone borrows a cat trap, that they sign a form saying that they are willing to speak with caregivers if there is anyone there so I'll write to clarify this.
Thirdly, they mentioned that they would be willing to consider handing out the brochure on alternatives to killing cats for people who borrow cat traps. However, they wanted CWS to have a brochure that mentions alternatives to trapping AND killing.
We're clearly not going to do that because we're trying to provide alternatives to having the cats killed. Clearly also if someone borrows a cat trap, they KNOW about the killing - plus it's not a solution to solving the nuisances, so we're going to write about that too.
