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Interview! Nell Thompson - Coordinator of National Getting To Zero Program

“I’m passionate for improving outcomes for community cats. I believe TNR would work great with cooperation and collaboration to achieve community change."

Nell has worked for over 25 years in the industry and her background is exceptional, due to her veterinary technician experience and knowledge that has heavily influenced her work every since. Her journey was heavily influenced by her parents, who volunteered in shelters when she was a kid and fostered cats and dogs as a family when she was young.   The National Getting to Zero Program is in Australia and primarily focuses on homeless cats and dogs and they work to implement change in a respectful way. They work to increase responsibility for companion animals so that every community and municipality can achieve zero euthanasia of all healthy and treatable cats and dogs.   Because they are in Australia, they take many methodologies and philosophies that we use here in the United Stated, and work to implement them there, since our cultures are fairly similar.   However, the government been difficult to work with when it comes to community cats. For a variety of reasons, community cats are very maligned in Australia. While being aware of the environmental factors, all options for population management need to be looked at and best applied, but the government is more on board with killing the overpopulation numbers that are homeless. Community cats are persecuted in the country based on government standards.   In most states in Australia, TNR is illegal. A lot of work has been done by locals to try to change the culture and work in more positive collaboration with the government, but so far, it has been a difficult road. In 2015, the government passed legislation to kill 1,000,000 cats, so the Getting to Zero program has been working in overdrive to get TNR up and running and to manage the population in a better way.   What can you do to help? One of the biggest drivers of this program is communication. Just by talking to people it can help to alert them to what is happening in Australia and what the problems are. It can be hard to push through change, but sometimes you need to accept the discomfort that comes with this and push through it.   For more information, head over to www.g2z.org.au.

The Hub on Ross hosted a Black History Month Extravaganza