Canberra's feral cats taking catastrophic toll on native animal population, research says

Josie, I can assure you dogs also kill wildlife. Lots of it. Don’ t mistake this. I lived the everyday proof. Just different wildlife and I will agree, less of it but still significant.

This is so frustrating. I worked as a wildlife carer for many years. Cats kill. So do dogs. The solution is so easy. I also own two companion cats. They are indoor animals and have never killed any wildlife in 7 years of their lives. Thank you The cat did it. I work in invasive species and there are a lot of questions that need addressing regarding feral cats (which mine clearly are not). The situation is always more complex and until we get a surveillance baseline and understand the details it is difficult to solve the problem. Should I even mention the brumbies….?

I hope their book is more rigorous than suggested by this article. Once again, we get the same concoction of selective statistics and pea-and-thimble logic to attribute feral cat levels of predation to domestic cats.
Feral cats are a serious threat to wildlife in arid areas, no question. But they are already well established in those regions, and that’s where the issue needs to be addressed. Measures taken against Tiddles in Ainslie won’t impact on feral cat management west of Alice Springs.
When the authors claim breathlessly that pet cats kill 75 animals per year, they should be honest enough to tell us what those animals were. How many were rodents, or reptiles, ie mostly brown skinks?
The draft ACT Cat Management Plan cites research that almost three quarters of household cat predation involves introduced species, ie rats and mice. Some interesting public health implications there. At least the draft Plan separates out the issues of feral and urban cat management.
While the predation figures referred to in the article may seem large, they are meaningless unless presented alongside other data, to give them context. What proportion of Canberra’s total native bird population do they represent? What are the other significant causes of death among Canberra’s native birds? How much are bird populations diminished as a result of habitat destruction when a new suburb is developed?
Perhaps Canberrans would accept a certain level of bird predation within urban areas, just as they already accept the all-too-visible ‘predation’ of vehicles on marsupial populations.
Of course, all this begs the question of the conservation value of established urban landscapes, but I suspect that this is a can of worms that governments would be most reluctant to open.

Cats should absolutely be contained to their owners property. Nobody wants your cat using their garden as a toilet. I don’t want to hear cats fighting all night either. That’s apart from the amount of wildlife they kill. Pretending otherwise is delusional and irresponsible.

People can’t just let their dogs roam the streets. It should be the case for cats too.

Feral cats originate from pet cats. Some people talk as though they are native animals!