Warning: What follows will tick some people off.
This cat was shot in Australia, a place that never had felines on it until European colonized. (Granted, that claim is hotly debated).
Cats have been tied to the collapse of many bird, rodents, and small marsupial populations. Extinctions from cat predation have been documented.
Cats in the Australian bush do not have to compete with a wide array of competing predators, so they are evolving into larger specimens than the typical moggie. (They are not becoming puma or even bobcat-sized, but unusually large feral cats are quite common in parts of Australia.)
Just as the dingo is derived from Indonesian domestic dogs that evolved to live as wildlife in the Australian outback, the cat is also evolving to fit a niche.
However, in doing so, they are causing real problems with Australia’s native fauna.
That’s why predator control for both foxes and feral cats is necessary in Australia.
And it needs to be much more extensive than anything we have attempted in this country.
Our wildlife does suffer cat depredations, but they evolved with similar predators. We have small wild cats that are native to our soil. We also have native foxes, native raccoons, native skunks, and native mustelids.
Australia does not.
And to save their native animals, the shotgun and the fox squealer must be employed.
This reminds me that episode of the Simsons in which Bart brings his frog to Australia !
‘Have to go there and bring my Berretta and Benelli… This is the kind of hunt I’d like : hunting with a call (like we do with ducks) and shoot a nuisance (for the Aussie habitat).
so long as they are killing them neatly, not poisoning or leg-trapping, not letting them die of exposure or dehydration in “live” traps by failing to check them regularly, etc,
i have no problem with it whatever –
in fact, i’d be willing to promote a BOUNTY on cats here in the USA – owned or not, if they roam, they’re fair game.
the Aussies have 12M ferals – the USA has an estimated 30M.
and i don’t give a hang how “similar” our native-predators might be, nothing else breeds as efficiently as domestic-cats.
IMO we need to follow the Australian model –
no roaming cats permitted, mandated chipping, mandated S/N if the owner has no breeding license, protected contact for wildlife [fully cat-proof fences or fully-enclosed screen houses to confine cats securely], and trap and eliminate feral or homeless strays; if they are human-affiliative, re-home them.
if they are terrified of humans, euthanize them.
i don’t give a healthy hang if every ONE of 30M cats is desexed tomorrow – i don’t want them trapped, S/N, rabies-vaxed + released.
i want them in a home – or gone from the landscape; not TNR. wildlife who are native should be allowed to have their lives, too.
unapologetic – i’ve dealt with it for much too-long,
– terry
terry pride, APDT-Aus, apdt#1827, CVA, TDF
If I remember correctly. In Austrailia the Feral cat is so abundant now that the Aboriginal people hunt them and make a nice meal of them now.
Then again, that’s not something I would consider palatable.
Where I live if a cat is witnessed killing any indigenous species you have every right to shoot the cat. Considering how many little creatures die due to cat predation… from feral cats and even the family tabby… The many programs that think spay/neuter and release are the fix in reality are entirely useless. Its time the world woke up, started to brush aside those who think a free roaming domestic cat has any rights and start taking aim at the real problem.
Here kitty kitty kitty…..BAM!!!!
I agree on that. If we have to have our dogs under control when outside the house, why isn’t it the same with domestic cats ? We have one cat at home (well, he thinks he’s a dog… being in a pack of 9 dogs, no wander why !). That cat has never been loose… so when people say that a cat cannot be kept like a dog, well, it can be. It’s just a matter of how we interpret what the domestic cat is. If we have to be responsible of our dogs, it should be the same with cats. I have to say daugh that roaming cats have one use : rodden control. This is why I tolerate them around… but once in a while, I have to say that I’d do some “here kitty kitty kitty…….. BAM !” because their number is pretty high.
QUOTE,
>> “I have to say [tho] that roaming cats have one use : [rodent] control. This is why I tolerate them…”” <<
——————–
there's only one problem with that –
cats do not limit themselves to rodents. if ALL cats killed, pounced on, or injured were rodents, their effects would not be so disastrous.
cats DON'T CARE what the H*** it is – if it moves, sounds or smells right, it's prey, and to be stalked or taken at will.
birds, bats, lizards, amphibians, fish, small terrestrial or arboreal mammals, large insects from katydids to moths or butterflies, snakes, turtle-hatchlings, ANY sort of eggs whatever, any ground-nesting species…
they're all on the menu, and if the cat is not hungry they'll pounce just for the thrill.
cats dig-out marine turtle nests on beaches worldwide; they climb trees to take birds and arboreal mammals or herps. they are consummate ambush-predators and also backtrack to burrows and nests; they stalk and pounce.
i have seen them take a flushed bird out of the air, more than once.
i don't hate cats as pets; indoors i think they are beautiful, affectionate and wonderful companions.
OUTSIDE cats should be leashed or **confined** to a carrier, cat-proof fence, or screen-room.
as for free-roaming cats, i despise them; yes, it's not the cat's fault – but it's not legal to shoot the [purported] owner, if any.
if it were up to me the FREE-ROAMING cat would be a listed varmint-species, with a year-round shooting and live-trapping season, and BOUNTIES in any areas with more than a few free-roaming cats.
– terry
I find this all very interesting. Fact is the sheep industry is a lot more detrimental to the Australian landscape than feral cats. So are rabbits and foxes. And the non-native plant life white folks brought over.
I just love how our great big solution to the problems WE CAUSE is just to kill a whole bunch of nonhumans. It boggles my mind, really. Not saying I know the just answer, but geez it just irks me that it’s always a bunch of other living, sentient beings who have to suffer because we’re just so freaking stupid.
Whatever you think about the sheep industry:
(1) It’s regulated
(2) It’s legal
(3) People WANT those sheep there
(4) It’s done on private land
(5) It provides an overwhelming net benefit to the country and the people
Feral cat’s can say any of that. They are not wanted. No one benefits.
Sheep are non-native. Their introduction killed off plenty of native grasses. The same has been seen with cattle ranching. Farming of sheep has been considered one of the greatest leading forces in the large mammalian extinction Australia is seeing. Farming sheep and cattle require a lot of permanent water sources, a pretty valuable commodity in Australia. Native wildlife, like kangaroos, are routinely hunted because they “compete” with non-native farmed animals.
The only difference between non-native cats, rabbits and non-native sheep and cattle is our perception of them. The destruction and havoc all wreak upon the landscape of Australia is very real. And all are unnatural, anthropogenic reasons for their high level of mammalian extinctions, land degradation, and water problems.
And to be clear, this is not unique to Australia.
We’ve dramatically transformed the landscapes of every single continent we’ve chosen to exploit and inhabit. The only reason we paint a target on feral cats is because WE don’t garner any positive benefit from them, not because they cause any more or less harm than, in this case, non-native sheep. That’s hypocrisy and THAT is what irks me. I don’t need to have any particular sentiment about sheep farming to feel that way.
Yup, probably all true.
According to Wikipedia, the 2006 value of Cattle, Calves, Milk, Wool, Lambs: 6.5+3.2+2.1+1.3= 13.1 billion Aus dollars.
That’s why kitties get shot and hoovies get fattened up on converted pasture.
QUOTE,
“I just love how our great big solution to the problems WE CAUSE is just to kill a whole bunch of nonhumans.”
——————–
well, i’m open to suggestion, marji –
re the humans in question getting off Scot-free, so to speak, and the poor wee kitties having to suffer.
i would be willing to bring back the thumb-screw or the iron-boot with hot-coals in its hollow-sole, and apply them to cat-owning eejits who persist in letting THEIR cats roam at large, **especially** if they let them roam as reproductively Intact cats.
OTOH i don’t want to use the thumb-screw so injudiciously that the person cannot hold a pen or pencil properly thereafter – pain is the point, not maiming.
the problem is discovering just WHOSE cats they were, left to roam – and as owners are notorious for not putting collars on cats, or if they do put collars, not putting tags on the collars, chances are the thumbscrews would rust and the iron-boot coldly flake away…
meanwhile the cats would still be out there, propagating phenomenally and eating, killing, crippling and injuring staggering numbers of small animals or animals yet-unborn [eggs or fetal mammals, pouch-marsupials, etc].
one way or another, we have to DEAL WITH 30-million feral cats… plus the uncounted hordes of Owned Pet-Cats permitted, desexed or not, to roam at-large.
mandatory-chipping would be step #1, for me:
if U own a cat, they are chipped with a pre-registered chip and info collected at the time the chip is inserted, matched to the info on the drivers-license, with the addition of at least one phone-number, plus a vet-contact [to verify rabies-vax status].
just like dogs, IMO cats should be licensed – and the chip + license + rabies-vax should be tracked on-line using the chip# as the ID; no fears about “privacy” being invaded.
a recognizable photo of the cat should be included – if there are identifying field-marks [bicolored eyes, white fan on abdomen, or summat] it’s a good idea to include those, too.
– terry
Was I supposed to come up with a solution? :) I’m pointing out our species’ glaring inconsistencies when it comes to “wanted” v. “unwanted” non-native groups of animals. We balk at ridding ourselves – in this case – of non-native ungulates in Australia b/c they offer a benefit that feral cats don’t NOT because non-native ungulates pose less of a risk to the native plants and animals.
That sort of nearly schizophrenic reasoning bothers me.
I’d be fine with letting the “less non-native” dingoes have at the feral cats, but the sheep and cattle farmers would cry foul. I’d also be fine with fully enclosed feral (sterilized) cat colonies, but the tax-payers would probably get their panties in a twist. And I’m fine with microchipping and requiring cats be indoor pets or leashed outdoors. But that’s just me, and I’m a bleeding heart ar person. So I’m biased, but I’m trying to point out the unfair and irrational reasoning for shooting feral cats in Australia while allowing sheep and cattle ranching to propagate.
I agree that sheep and other hoofed stock are problem.
A problem that will not be solved.
However, the cat problem can be solved.
Through your solutions– partially.
But no one is going to put up 12 million feral cats– especially any government. I can imagine what the Republicans would say if we tried that here.
Plus those truly wild feral cats that are evolving to fit the Outback conditions aren’t really going to be happy in captivity of any sort.
The gun is kinder in this sense.
Instead of years of torture in captivity.
They are humanely dispatched.
Those free roaming cats should be required…mandatory microchipping that identifies the owner and HOLDS THE OWNER RESPONSIBLE. With heavy fines and if there is no owner the cat gets put down. End of story. This is an admission that the human factor has in fact been traced to the source of the problem in the first place. But also stepping up and saying that its also our responsibility to fix it if we can. And the fix isn’t “fixing” the cat to be sterile and re-releasing it to roam and kill again while it looks at all of its offspring that we able to avoid capture and proliferate exponentially.
Cats, kill without mercy and without discrimination, therefore a pest is just as good as any creature that is a benefit to the ecosystem. And when that beneficial creature is removed from the equation there are indigenous predators that suffer as well. Its a domino effect within the entire ecosystem. All because of that non-discriminating killer that the humanizing people of this world call a sentient being. Maybe if I pilled the bags full of remains of creatures killed, by their precious sentient being, on their doorstep it will allow the truly stupid to see the light, to see the true extent of the damage caused.
If the owners are held accountable then they will either stop contributing to the problem by keeping tabs on their tabby or signing over the cat to be put down, whichever is cheaper, thus end of problem. And the system that is policing this earns a revenue off the stupidity of the irresponsible owners instead of wasting their time and our money catching, altering and then releasing, so the cycle will continue at our growing expense.
We are not all stupid with respect to this situation. The owners of free roaming cats are. So don’t lump us all in there as a whole. Clearly this is caused by stupid people in the first place. Its the RESPONSIBLE ones that have the true fix and the stupid ones screaming sentient beings are being hurt. Like the lesser creatures have nothing to contribute to a healthy ecosystem. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Kiss my ass and get some common sense.
In the meantime…..
Awwwww. Here …… Kitty kitty kitty. BLAM!!!!
FLAME ON!!!!
I like cats. Looks like the only person on my side of the fence, on this post, is a pit bull owner.
But to the other pit bull owner, who thinks that it would be fine to shoot cats, let me ask this: In the US cats are legal, it is legal to let cats run loose (this is so they can keep rodent numbers in check), but it is NOT legal to let dogs run loose (we have leash laws), so how would you feel about someone who said that pit bulls should be shot, or someone who said “nice pitty, nice pitty, BLAM”?
Why do you feel that shooting legal pets, who are just doing what they are meant to do (get rid of rodents) is okay, but shooting dogs who are illegally running loose would be bad? What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander too.
I am against shooting pets.
Are you for shooting all loose pets? Or just for shooting other people’s loose pets?
The US is NOT Australia. And in the US feral cats are usually in cities, and survive the winter with help from people. Think about it, how many hunters who go way out away from any farms or cabins, find wild cats? Not many in the US. Our “wild cats” are feral cats and usually scavenge near human places. They are suppose to kill rodents and sick birds.
What is the difference between:
“Here kitty, kitty, BLAM” and
“Here pitty, pitty, BLAM”?
And what about loose retriever dogs? Someone is against cats because they kill birds, but they like hunting birds with retrievers? “That just don’t make no sense!”
Having on open season kitties, pitties, or retties? Really people, let’s not hunt other people’s pets!
You can’t suggest killing other people’s pets for running loose, unless you also like the idea of people killing your pet for running loose.
If I wanted to read blaserbuds, I’d go there. I don’t go there (just once was enough).
I like cats. Maybe you don’t like cats, but I don’t shoot other people’s pets, and I don’t think it’s fair to shoot loose cats but not loose dogs. Let’s NOT shoot pets.