The cats are disappearing for a reason.

Someone is responsible and whatever they want the animals for, it would be ugly.

No matter what your opinion about cats, animal cruelty is a precursor to violent crimes against people. I own a cat but I keep it inside partly to protect wildlife but equally to protect it from nut-cases in the community

WE have also had cats go missing and they never returned, four all up, two kittens (The Examiner, September 24).

And last week my little fluffy silky terrier I've had for 14 years also went missing.

I've lived in the same house for six years and she has always gone to the toilet on the front lawn. My yard is not fenced in. She had never wandered far and always stayed close to home. All the people that live close know she is friendly and always stop to pat her.

Since she has gone missing I have put posters all over the town and a call out to the radio station, checked with all vets and council and the lost dogs home posted all over Facebook - nobody has seen her.

In the past few days, someone has been ripping down the missing posters I've placed around town. Every day I drive around replacing them and the next day they have been torn down again. It's so heartbreaking knowing my best friend of 14 years has potentially been stolen.

CATS were often not microchipped and not confined, well what can I say? (The Examiner, September 24).

Now someone seems to be taking our cute, cuddly little native animal killers and they are disappearing one by one and it becomes headline news, yet the absolute destruction of those non microchipped running freely in the wild killing basically everything that moves don't get any news for their continuous fun-loving activities.

Sorry cat owners, but at last someone might be taking action.

BACK in the 1950s and 1960s, this presented no problems as many city dwellers flocked to the country to harvest raspberries, blackcurrants, apples, pears and hops.

It was a way for women to earn extra household money. I was involved in this, over two summer vacations from my school teacher job, picking strawberries at Uxbridge. So what as changed?

Most dramatically remuneration did not.

To earn 30 shillings daily picking raspberries may have been OK immediately post world war II, but did not keep pace with wage increases generally.

However, it appears this may have changed with earnings of $1500 or more weekly now possible. Surely this will attract young school leavers and gap year experiences to harvest those mid-summer crops of raspberries, strawberries or cherries.

What a degree of independence this would give university students after having earned over $10,000 before university resumed. How I would have welcomed the opportunity all those years ago.

CROSSING the main street of Exeter is a short but dangerous walk. There are more cars and heavy vehicles on the West Tamar Highway than ever and they all pass through Exeter. It would be great to see a pedestrian crossing, maybe in the style of the one outside the LGH, installed in Exeter before someone is killed or seriously injured.

THE money that the government is spending for Dorset Council to pull up the railway line should be spent maintaining it for people of all ages to enjoy a ride on a rail motor. Once the rail line is gone it will never be rebuilt. There are lots of other bike trails for cyclists to ride on.

I could hardly believe it when I read in Louise Turner's letter (The Examiner, September 16) that the George Town council had commissioned a NSW firm to produce a shop local campaign. For what?

To produce a few signs that I'm sure could be made just as well by locals at a much-reduced cost. It is decisions like this that cause people to lose respect in local government when it seems to be dominated by bureaucrats who have no real connection to the locals who pay their wages.

The COVID-19 crisis should have been a wake-up call that we should become more self-sufficient in every way that we can, but it seems that the message hasn't got through to many of those in positions of power.

I WISH to comment regarding Senator Jane Howlett's speech against the Gaffney bill. I feel that her speech conveys the thoughts and feelings of many Tasmanians who are against this bill.

VAD, however one likes to look at it, is the taking of one's life by the one, and though I accept this action to be their wish, I for one do not condone it. The Gaffney bill is poorly constructed and is far too open-ended to pass legislation at this time.

I hope that the Senate as a whole will reject it for those reasons.