READERS DISCUSS: Animal owners have role to play

THE debate in the community about Rockhampton's pound and pet adoption continued this week, with some readers saying pet owners are partly to blame for the high numbers of animals being euthanised.

Rockhampton Regional Mayor Margaret Strelow hit back against online critics of the council's animal management practices that she says were fuelled by "vigilante groups".

In a letter to the editor, Cr Strelow said a series of false posts had misidentified the animal euthanasia rate for Rockhampton as 73%, and then launched an "attack" on council for their lack of in-house adoption programs.

"Our rates are actually 31% of dogs and 62% of cats," she said.

Here is what some readers said on Facebook:

Mathew N Melissa Pipe - Maybe if animal owners had their pets desexed the council wouldn't have a ridiculous amount of animals to put down.

Hannah Stark - Maybe if council offered ongoing, afordable desexing ... Like many other councils... Low income earners would be able to desex their pets.

Toni Cordell - The mayor believes people are entitled to be backyard breeders. CAA are working tirelessly to get the desexing point across to people.

Iris Helmi Ilona Rosenius - If you can't afford to desex your pet, don't get one.

Kate Stephenson - You can't really blame the council for the amount of unwanted animals coming through their doors. The problem is the number of irresponsible pet owners who don't do the right thing.

Megan Lester - Wouldn't it all be wonderful if people just adopted. $160 for my cat from rspca and he came vaccinated, microchipped, wormed, flead and desexed and they gave us catfood too.

Mathew N Melissa Pipe - Why should the council be responsible for desexing animals that they didn't force you to get. How about everyone starts taking financial responsibility for the choices. stop expecting the council to do it for them.

Leyland Barnett - CAA do a wonderful job with their adoption program, the animals are desexed, vacinated and micro-chipped before being adopted out. The council should be supporting their great effort in saving some of our dogs and cats from termination.