15 July 2019

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

| Lachlan Roberts
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Bengal cat

Cats might be great companions but they are prolific killers, according to new research. Photo: Glynis Quinlan.

Researchers are encouraging the ACT Government to implement its cat plan after their study found that feral and domestic cats kill more than a million animals in the ACT every year.

The research, published in the new book, Cats in Australia: Companion and Killer, said cats, both pets and feral, kill many native animals and the toll could be catastrophic.

One of the book’s authors, ANU Professor Sarah Legge, said feral cats are incredibly dangerous to wildlife, with a single feral cat killing an average of 155 reptiles, 65 birds and 26 native mammals in the ACT every year.

“Cats are great pets but they are also incredible invasive predators so wherever they have gone around the world they have wreaked havoc and Australia is no exception,” she told Region Media.

“We think the population of feral cats in the ACT is at a minimum 3,000 and is probably a lot higher than that. That number is a combination of feral cats living out in the bush and also feral cats or strays that live around the city.

“Every year, they are killing huge amounts of wildlife. They are killing 200,000 birds, 500,000 reptiles and 250,000 mammals every year.

“That is just feral cats. Pet cats kill wildlife at a lower rate but they still kill a lot of wildlife. On average each pet cat kills about 75 animals per year, but many of these kills are never witnessed by their owners.”

Professor Legge said Canberrans have conflicting opinions about cats, but there was no denying they were a cataclysmic problem for wildlife. She believes many of Australia’s native species will become at risk of extinction unless Australia’s cat problem is solved.

“Australia has the worst mammal extinction rate in modern times,” she said. “There are about 30-40 species extinct since European settlement which is by far the world’s record holder.

“Around two-thirds of those cases, cats were the primary contributors to that extinction. They have already reeked a lot of damage and they are still causing population decline today. These mammal populations can be driven to extinction very quickly due to cats.”

Professor Legge, who studied key findings from hundreds of cat management studies, said the ACT needs to continue leading the way in responsible cat management.

“The population of feral cats probably won’t grow but they are already having a severe impact on Canberra wildlife,” she said. “Given that Canberra is the bush capital, Canberra needs to lead the way with responsible cat management.

“I think the ACT is a leader in responsible cat management, with their draft ACT Cat Plan. Cat containment suburbs is also a wonderful initiative and it’s a way for people to keep having cats as pets while minimising their impact on the environment.

“I think the ACT Government are thinking really broadly about cats and what to do about it but what happens over the next few years in terms of how they implement their plan will be very important.”

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Megan van der Velde9:01 pm 18 Jul 19

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.

Megan van der Velde8:57 pm 18 Jul 19

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….?

The cat did it6:37 pm 18 Jul 19

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.

Good reply, but won’t make a difference to the zealots.

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.

Grimm wrote, “Nobody wants your cat using their garden as a toilet.”

I have had cats visiting me. They dig a whole in the garden. So what! Never worried me…which puts a lie to what you wrote. Just say what you mean; that YOU don’t want a cat using your garden as a toilet. Don’t include the whole population in what worries you.

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

When all the domestic cats are locked up, the feral cats will be able to take over their territories. And they eat more wildlife.

No domestic cat is going to last a minute in a fight with a feral cat, so territories? No.

You sure about that. Not all domestic cats are wimps. My last domestic cat, (about 15 years or so ago), weighed 6.7kg (average cat weight 4kg) and he wasn’t fat. He could stand up and look in my the side window of my car. Fortunately birds weren’t on his menu, and he would allow birds to hop near him and make no attempt to attack them. He was a fighter, not a hunter.

Cue the righteous indignation of the cat owning fraternity who will insist it is an infringement of their civil liberties to prevent ‘Mr Tiddles’ from wandering the neighbourhood at will.

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