Mayor Margaret Strelow has 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 yesterday, 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. http://ow.ly/SOWqu