Ozbow

Feral cats. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-10/f ... ws/4419962

It's a shame the media don't report more on these sorts of things. The problem of feral cats has been known for decades now.

Jeff

Very interesting

The last few years we have seen heaps more cats out here, trying to do my bit with the bow but haven't hit one yet

I have a cat but she dose not leave the house. I love cats they are a nice animal but they should not be outside.
woodie

I think woodie has a good point. I believe the problem starts with cat owners not de-sexing their pets and allowing cats to roam. Possibly letting young cats to the wild.
Scuzz

My best effort at thining out the feral cat population was a night spotlighting when I was living on the home farm in the riverina in southern NSW between three of us we shot fourty one cats.My latest effort was this one on my last hunting trip at Byrock,it came into to the dam just in front of a big mob of goats and I drilled it at about twenty five meters.I was damn proud of myself hittiing that scrawny little cat at that far with the Widow.
Matt

I am not anti-cat, but it grates on me when I have to register my dog, and confine her to my property, yet my neighbours can have multiple unlicenced cats that roam free, happily munching on the local fauna and running amok.

I have given the Father/Mother-in-Law a hand to make a huge cat run at their place for their cats.
It was a right PITA but the cats are free to run about at will, and they are secured from escape and also against being harassed by the other cats in the neighbourhood. It was funny watching the "outsiders" stuck on the wrong side of the mesh.

the only problem I have is the blanket drop of all that poison
would sooner use pointy bits on them

Axefanatic wrote:I am not anti-cat, but it grates on me when I have to register my dog, and confine her to my property, yet my neighbours can have multiple unlicenced cats that roam free, happily munching on the local fauna and running amok.

I have given the Father/Mother-in-Law a hand to make a huge cat run at their place for their cats.
It was a right PITA but the cats are free to run about at will, and they are secured from escape and also against being harassed by the other cats in the neighbourhood. It was funny watching the "outsiders" stuck on the wrong side of the mesh.

good point,I have 2 dogs and had to pay 3 times as much to register them not desexed

And then the balance is this utter cr*p from some high falutin university educated moron who probably owns a bunch of the damn things:

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/societ ... 2ccqu.html

When I read your post John I thought your comments were a bit over the top but upon reading the diatribe that bloke wrote I can clearly see they weren't. The very frightening thing is that this bloke is employed by a university to teach young people - astounding to say the least!!!

Jeff

Yeah, that guy obviously has a bit of an agenda, but he did raise an interesting point.... None of the 27 native mammals that have become extinct since European settlement in Australia were wiped out purely by introduced predators like foxes and cats. Although predation is definitely a contributing factor, loss of habitat - mostly to due to grazing sheep and cattle; and competition from other introduced species such as rats and rabbits are just as much, if not more, to blame.
Macquarie Island is an interesting case, as feral cats were completely eradicated in 2000. Before the eradication programme started in the 80's, the cats did have a significant negative impact on native seabird populations; however once the cats were gone, rabbit and rodent numbers skyrocketed, doing massive damage to native vegetation and populations of native animals that depend on it for food and habitat.
I don't like cats. At all. But ecology problems like this are very rarely black and white.

Jeff, Old Bean. You should have seen the first draft. And the email that I sent the rick (with a silent 'p').

Let me say this, having been to Uni and taught (Law) at Uni can I say that the main role of Sociology Professors was not to teach but to try and get First Year students into bed.

And that is all I am saying.

For now.

discord wrote:Yeah, that guy obviously has a bit of an agenda, but he did raise an interesting point.... None of the 27 native mammals that have become extinct since European settlement in Australia were wiped out purely by introduced predators like foxes and cats. Although predation is definitely a contributing factor, loss of habitat - mostly to due to grazing sheep and cattle; and competition from other introduced species such as rats and rabbits are just as much, if not more, to blame.
Macquarie Island is an interesting case, as feral cats were completely eradicated in 2000. Before the eradication programme started in the 80's, the cats did have a significant negative impact on native seabird populations; however once the cats were gone, rabbit and rodent numbers skyrocketed, doing massive damage to native vegetation and populations of native animals that depend on it for food and habitat.
I don't like cats. At all. But ecology problems like this are very rarely black and white.

What you are describing there is a phenomenon called trophic cascade and it is very real, but it is not the guts of the issue here where we are talking about the detrimental effects of feral cats on our native fauna. It is also much too simplistic to talk about habitat loss and claim it is just as much to blame. If you look at recent work done in the NT on cats and their ability to destroy the viability of populations of natives you will see that cats, all on their own, can cause local extinctions of natives. And in places like Victoria where bandicoots are already under pressure from habitat change, but were able to adapt and survive, cats have been the straw that broke the camels back and we see a very poor future for the natives while the cats are rampant there. We also see areas in the Dandenongs where cats were taking a terrible toll on the lyrebird populations until laws were introduced to control pet cats and a poison program was put in place to kill the ferals. The lyrebirds have come back well showing without doubt that they were the catalyst for the population decline in the lyrebirds.

Yes the problems are rarely black and white, but to give up trying like this idiot in Tas is suggesting will soon make Australian native fauna a hell of a lot poorer.

I must say, I'm regularly amazed at the miriad perspectives any given issue can be viewed from. Although it can be irksome to have your views challenged, it's good to contemplate any topic from all angles before forming an opinion.

Having said that, and having considered the issue from this chaps perspective...I think the bloke's talking shite! I'm still trying to work out how his train of thought led to writing an OP/ED column conflating the issues of feral cats and fear of refugees! Maybe a little less time navigating intellectual dead ends and more time in the bush will see him right?