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Australia’s war on feral cats

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Re: Australia’s war on feral cats

#21

Post by ghostly_s »

smackay wrote: post #19

Cats are everybody's problem. The scale of the carnage (there is no other word) is breathtaking. There is quite a bit of scientific literature available, however the popular press, though more sensationalist, gives a decent picture on how significant the problem is: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/outdo... http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/9-leading-causes-of-bird-dea...

I won't claim to have the final answer on this issue, but the study you are citing has been subject to a brief statistical analysis which I think reveals it as highly suspect, at the least.

http://www.alleycat.org/document.doc?id=633

http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/02/03/170851048/do-we-...

Re: Australia’s war on feral cats

#22

Post by shirro »

vacri wrote: post #17
geowwy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> They aren't chipped or tagged and there are no registration fees unlike dog ownership. There is no equivalent of a dog catcher or fines for people who let them wander. In Western Australia it's now illegal to let your cat out the house unless it's chipped, tagged, tattooed and de-sexed. Other states will probably follow soon.

what's tagging (as opposed to chipping)?

When I pay yearly dog registration my local council supplies numbered plastic ties (used to be disks) which must be attached to the dog's collar. They aren't attached to the dog itself so more like soldier dog tags than cattle tags.

Re: Australia’s war on feral cats

#23

Post by [deleted] »

smackay wrote: post #19

Cats are everybody's problem. The scale of the carnage (there is no other word) is breathtaking. There is quite a bit of scientific literature available, however the popular press, though more sensationalist, gives a decent picture on how significant the problem is: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/outdo... http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/9-leading-causes-of-bird-dea...

[deleted]

Re: Australia’s war on feral cats

#24

Post by setpatchaddress »

silly1 wrote: post #8
flashman wrote: post #2

What a silly set of arguments: 1) "We have ethical responsibilities to cats as well as to biodiversity" 2) "[Compared to humans] are we really to believe that it is cats who are the enemy of biodiversity?" 3) "Out of respect for cats and the people who care for them, we should give preference to nonlethal alternatives in management first and foremost." To which I say: 1) There will always be more cats. We're nearly o…

I've hunted and killed feral cats on properties before, good luck doing any kind of rehoming with a feral cat. They are a lost cause.

You don't 'rehome' a feral cat. You do TNR. Safe, humane, and effective. " rel="nofollow">http://www.neighborhoodcats.org/HOW_TO_WHAT_IS_TNR>

Re: Australia’s war on feral cats

#25

Post by smackay »

ghostly_s wrote: post #21
smackay wrote: post #19

Cats are everybody's problem. The scale of the carnage (there is no other word) is breathtaking. There is quite a bit of scientific literature available, however the popular press, though more sensationalist, gives a decent picture on how significant the problem is: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/outdo... http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/9-leading-causes-of-bird-dea...

I won't claim to have the final answer on this issue, but the study you are citing has been subject to a brief statistical analysis which I think reveals it as highly suspect, at the least. http://www.alleycat.org/document.doc?id=633 http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/02/03/170851048/do-we-...

Similar research has been done in the UK (I believe by the Mammal Society, sorry cannot find a reference) and the estimated number of bird deaths per year was 300 million.

This is a tough problem to quantify - typically the studies follow a number of cats closely and then extrapolate based on the estimated number of cats. Clearly this is close to an educated guess however the important part is that we are getting some idea of the scale of the problem. Given all the pressures on wildlife, this one is probably one of the more solvable problems.

Re: Australia’s war on feral cats

#27

Post by vacri »

setpatchaddress wrote: post #24
silly1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've hunted and killed feral cats on properties before, good luck doing any kind of rehoming with a feral cat. They are a lost cause.

You don't 'rehome' a feral cat. You do TNR. Safe, humane, and effective. " rel="nofollow">http://www.neighborhoodcats.org/HOW_TO_WHAT_IS_TNR>

The arguments in that article don't seem to ring true. It's claiming that simple trap-and-remove just has other cats move into the area and that if you don't catch all of them, the breeding pairs bring population back to the same level. But with TNR, the population is never reduced, since you put them back; you have the same problem with breeders if you don't catch them all; and when the neutered cats start dying out, they'll be replaced by the same neighbours anyway.

Re: Australia’s war on feral cats

#29

Post by littletimmy »

vacri wrote: post #4

Weird article. The article finishes up complaining that humans are the prime agents of reducing biodiversity and are hence morally obligated to fix it... but apparently not by animal management. Somehow we are morally obligated to fix the damage we have done, but not by reducing the numbers of cats (or foxes, toads, pigs, rabbits, camels...). The proposed alternatives are merely links to sites that don't give clear p…

We should engage in a culling of humans. This despicable species of hairless African chimp has marauded the rest of the earth.

Humans are 7 billion. Ideally, we need some 500 million.

Re: Australia’s war on feral cats

#30

Post by jacobush »

vacri wrote: post #27
setpatchaddress wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't 'rehome' a feral cat. You do TNR. Safe, humane, and effective. " rel="nofollow">http://www.neighborhoodcats.org/HOW_TO_WHAT_IS_TNR>

The arguments in that article don't seem to ring true. It's claiming that simple trap-and-remove just has other cats move into the area and that if you don't catch all of them, the breeding pairs bring population back to the same level. But with TNR, the population is never reduced, since you put them back; you have the same problem with breeders if you don't catch them all; and when the neutered cats start dying out…

Neutered cats compete for resources that otherwise breeding ones would access.
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