The Null Device
2010/9/5
The Belgian government has proposed a law requiring all cats to be sterilised, with the exception of a few very rare (and expensive) breeds, from the start of next year.
Initially, all cats in shelters will be sterilised. The next phase imposes neutering on cats from breeders and sellers. Finally, all cat owners will be obliged to have their pets sterilised and registered, costing about €130 (£108) for a female cat and €50 for a tom. Breeders and owners of Siamese, Abyssinian and other special pedigrees will be exempted from the new regime.I can see such a law making sense in Australia, where feral cats are an ecological problem; Australia, also being far from other countries and having a famously strict quarantine system, could also prevent the importation of cats causing F. domesticus to become extinct within the country. Perhaps, if a government with authoritarian tendencies needed to burnish its green credentials and "cat people" fell on the wrong side of a politically expedient culture war (in the way that "inner-city latte sippers" and enthusiasts of foreign arthouse films did in the Howard era), it might happen.