The German Animal Welfare Federation and its regional association Hamburger Tierschutzverein von 1841 e.V. (HTV) welcome the cat protection ordinance passed by the Hamburg Senate. According to the ordinance, all free-roaming domestic cats in Hamburg must be neutered, chipped and registered by January 2026. The ordinance is an important measure to curb the uncontrolled proliferation of street cat populations and the associated suffering of the animals. It also relieves the burden on local animal welfare activists, who have been campaigning for the animals for years. In view of the upcoming federal elections, the German Animal Welfare Federation is making it clear that this is a nationwide animal welfare problem and is calling for nationwide regulations for more cat protection.
“The time has finally come! For years, we have been fighting against the suffering of street cats by catching and neutering free-roaming animals and feeding them at supervised feeding stations. But as long as unneutered outdoor cats from private households continue to breed, it's a battle against windmills,” says Janet Bernhardt, 1st Chairwoman of the HTV. There are an estimated 10,000 street cats in Hamburg. Dr. Dalia Zohni, specialist for pets at the German Animal Welfare Federation, adds: “The ordinance is a great success for the protection of cats in Hamburg. Ultimately, all free-roaming cats can be traced back to cats from private households that have not been neutered. In order to reduce the suffering and death of street cats and kittens in the long term, two measures are therefore necessary: the neutering of street cats and the neutering of outdoor cats.”
The suffering of street cats has become one of the biggest unnoticed animal welfare problems in Germany in recent years. Almost all of them are weakened by disease, parasites, injuries and hunger. The chances of a kitten born on the street living longer than a few months are slim. Animal welfare organizations can no longer cope with the problem on their own - and animal shelters are full of found cats, orphaned kittens from street cats and unwanted offspring from owner cats. Nationwide, the misery and the mass of animals in need of help are making the associations desperate.
Hamburg has so far been at the bottom of the list of federal states when it comes to cat protection. The state parliament of Lower Saxony passed a state-wide cat protection ordinance in June 2023, but this has not yet been implemented. Berlin has had a cat protection ordinance that applies to the entire city area since 2022. Saarland issued a state-wide ordinance in 2021, but it only applies to defined hot spots. All other federal states already have cat protection ordinances at municipal level. “Even if every single municipality with a cat protection ordinance is a gain for animal welfare, it remains a patchwork nationwide. Unneutered cats do not stop at municipal borders. To really curb the problem of growing cat populations, we need mandatory neutering for outdoor cats and mandatory identification and registration at federal level,” says Zohni.
Note to editors: The German Animal Welfare Federation provides information about the nationwide animal welfare problem of street cats as part of its “Every cat's life counts” campaign (www.jetzt-katzen-helfen.de) and in its “Big Cat Protection Report”. Since December 2024, you will find new figures from recent surveys, according to which around 99 percent of street cats are sick and 69 percent are even seriously ill. The German Animal Welfare Federation has summarized the advantages of a nationwide castration obligation here: www.jetzt-katzen-helfen.de/tierschutzgesetz
