The issue of cat containment is a vexed one for the territory and one that involves polarising views from the community.
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It is a concern that there are increasing numbers of cats found to be roaming in Canberra's feline-free suburbs and that 15 of 56 cats captured were euthanised last year.
The ACT government is working on a new cat management strategy and it is reasonable to expect it would include a widening of the containment areas.
The ACT Conservation Council, however, has renewed calls to expand cat containment rules to cover the entire territory by 2025.
The council argues this would give cat owners in other suburbs time to prepare both their properties and their animals for the change.
It is a fact that cats are a serious threat to native species in the capital and it makes sense to have the areas adjoining nature reserves as cat free.
Of course this status doesn't stop roaming cats from visiting cat containment suburbs from elsewhere.
A decision to ban all cats from roaming however would be extremely unpopular for reasons of practicality, the costs of outdoor enclosures for cats, and for the unforeseen effects on caged cats formerly roaming free.
It would also be a challenge to enforce such a policy due to the intense resourcing that would be required.
The federal government announced just last week that it was about to embark on a war against 2 million feral cats in Australia and would provide $5 million to community groups to help.
The aim is to save about 124 species of native wildlife at risk of extinction.
Each feral cat kills up to 1000 native animals a year, ranging from crickets to lizards and small mammals.
While it is a stretch to think the average moggy in Canberra would reach such kill numbers, the figure displays just how damaging the animals can be.
The ACT government is aiming to re-establish and protect a number of threatened species in the territory and roaming cats certainly pose a threat to this goal.
