
Australia’s war on feral cats - lermontov
https://theconversation.com/australias-war-on-feral-cats-shaky-science-missing-ethics-47444
======
flashman
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 out of some of their prey,
such as brush-tailed bettongs and mountain pygmy possums.

2) Your argument is humans are worse, therefore we shouldn't do anything about
cats? Really?

3) This is a reasonable point, insofar as you can figure out an ethical way to
deal with an undomesticated cat once you've caught it.

~~~
silly1
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.

~~~
setpatchaddress
You don't 'rehome' a feral cat. You do TNR. Safe, humane, and effective.
<[http://www.neighborhoodcats.org/HOW_TO_WHAT_IS_TNR>](http://www.neighborhoodcats.org/HOW_TO_WHAT_IS_TNR>)

~~~
vacri
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.

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

~~~
vacri
So you have a full competing population, otherwise there'd be spare for the
breeding cats. Then when the neutered ones die, existing breeders fill in the
gaps, or, as the article says, neighbours come in.

------
shirro
Cats are totally out of control here and there needs to be more action both on
fully feral animals and those left to roam freely by their "owners".

I can't move around my yard at any time of day or night without disturbing a
cat. 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.

I got a hefty fine for a chihuahua cross that bolted out the door a child left
open and got a couple of blocks away before we noticed. A huge threat to
humans and livestock that was.

My neighbours cats set up near permanent residence in our yard shitting
Toxoplasmosis into my kids sandpit and killing native wildlife that would cost
thousands of dollars in fines and/or a jail sentence if their owners did it
and there is no recourse. I am surprised illegal baiting of them isn't more
common.

~~~
geowwy
>>> _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.

~~~
vacri
what's tagging (as opposed to chipping)?

~~~
geowwy
They have to have tags attached to their collar to show they're registered.

~~~
vacri
Ah, of course, silly me. Our cats are chipped, tattooed, and desexed - just
not tagged.

------
buserror
Having grown up with a cat lady (17 cats at some point) I can tell you that
anyone who claims 'look in the mirror' and try to apply human ethics to their
pets is completely irrational.

Most of the time these people will actually make up complete nonsense story to
justify the pet behaviour, including completely stupid stuff like "it's
Tuesday, he always like to be on the dinning table on tuesday" and endless
other nonsense.

There are several papers [ Example:
[http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-
sushi/toxoplasma...](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-
sushi/toxoplasmas-dark-side-the-link-between-parasite-and-suicide/) ] describe
how Toxoplasmosis could not only get into owner's system, but also change
their behaviour; they had demonstrated that mices infected with it would
actually be /attracted/ to cats completely irrationally.

When you look at this and extrapolate on how many people are actually /crazy/
about cats [ Check, the interweb! ] and could be affected by that sort of
brain damage --all of them driving, voting and making 'rational' decisions--
it's really worrying...

~~~
Ntrails
I go home to see my mother on the weekends a lot at the moment (temporarily of
no fixed abode). When I start getting ready to leave at around 6pm on a Sunday
the dog will lie in the Hallway between me and the front door. We consider
that he knows I'm about to leave, and that's why he's there. I spend plenty of
time in my room without seeing that behaviour.

Am I suffering from brain damage in anthropomorphising his behaviour somewhat?
Or am I simply choosing the explanation that gives me the most comfort?

The reality is I can't tell why any human being does something, regardless of
the fact they can actually talk. I choose what to believe as the motives for
them, and do the same for my dog.

~~~
thedaemon
Dogs are not cats. The dog cares about you and knows you usually leave then.
They have a very good sense of time even thought they "live in the moment."

------
vacri
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 paths of action - the first is a link to
a book talking about ways to live near wild animals (ie: not wide-ranging
maintenance of biodiversity) and the second is a puff site.

> _Out of respect for cats and the people who care for them, we should give
> preference to nonlethal alternatives in management first and foremost._

Ah, the "this animal is pretty" problem. What a bizarre argument that the
article makes; that humans are the actual scumbags that are the real cause of
the problem... but at the same time, we shouldn't engage in a cull because it
will upset some humans.

In any case, it's something a self-correcting problem - if there really aren't
20M fetal cats in Australia, then the proposed cull won't get 2M of them.

~~~
littletimmy
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.

~~~
vacri
Well, going by the article, you're welcome to use any form of population
control that won't upset any humans.

------
smackay
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...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-
science/outdoor-cats-kill-between-14-billion-and-37-billion-birds-a-year-
study-says/2013/01/31/2504f744-6bbe-11e2-ada0-5ca5fa7ebe79_story.html)

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/9-leading-causes-of-bird-
dea...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/9-leading-causes-of-bird-deaths-in-
canada-1.1873654)

~~~
ghostly_s
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.alleycat.org/document.doc?id=633)

[http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/02/03/170851048/do-
we-...](http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/02/03/170851048/do-we-really-
know-that-cats-kill-by-the-billions-not-so-fast)

~~~
smackay
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.

------
hartror
An interesting perspective and it seems like more science needs to be done to
sort out the true scale of the problem. However I still don't take issue with
using lethal means to control the problem, and I don't doubt in some areas it
is a problem.

Looking at the issue pragmatically we're not going to see the political will
to paying for a bait, neuter and release program. Meanwhile we're losing
native prey species who cannot wait for the "ethical" solution to work its way
through our parliament.

------
elementalest
The cat situation is so bad in some areas one guy made an automated cat
deterrent:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIbkLjjlMV8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIbkLjjlMV8)

~~~
buserror
Best video ever. thanks, I needed that :-)

------
thomasfoster96
I'm not really sure what the point of these sorts of article is - do they want
to let feral cats roam free throughout Australia unrestricted? Do they want
feral cats to be taken into captivity?

It's not really constructive to try and argue that Dingoes and Tasmanian
Devils are excluding cats from the food chain. Dingoes are absent from much of
southern Australia - and so they aren't competing with cats in the first
place. Devils are stricken by a disease epidemic and are more scavengers than
hunters - they aren't outcompeting cats. Native marsupials that cats might be
competing with would probably more or less include quolls - and guess what?
Quolls don't seem to be able to outcompete cats.

Then when it comes to cat numbers, the argument seems to be that unless we're
certain about numbers no feral cat culling is worthwhile. That's a strange
argument, given that the link to the ABC's Fact Check on cat numbers seems to
conclude that numbers are estimated at anything from 5 to 20+ million but
aren't verifiable. While we can't verify numbers (nobody has the time to
conduct a survey of every cat in Australia, like we do for humans), I think
it's fair to conclude feral cats outnumber domestic cats at least 2 to 1.

Thinking too much about the ethics of conservation is as dangerous as not
thinking about it enough - humans caused the cat problem, so we should fix it.
And also fix the cane toad problem, the fox problem, etc.

~~~
wavefunction
Nice post, it seems like two feral cats (at the least) is one feral cat too
many, if they are fertile.

------
EdwardDiego
It strikes me that there's a reasonably simple metric that can be applied, if
you presume biodiversity to be good, and human induced extinction to be bad.

If you do, then the value of a feral's cat life is far lower than the value of
a threatened native Australian mammal's life.

As for the non-lethal vs. lethal, it's all well and good to propose it, but
I'd take such proposals a lot more seriously if you had a way of funding it.
Conservation is always underfunded by government, so if you want to change how
it's done, Morrisey, put some money on the table.

The same holds true for the usage of 1080
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_fluoroacetate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_fluoroacetate))
vs. using more humane lethal methods - trapping and shooting are far more
expensive to administer per square hectare.

------
userbinator
I wonder how many would be opposed to hunting and eating them. Apparently some
Australians are doing this already:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_meat#Oceania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_meat#Oceania)

------
A_COMPUTER
Who here remembers John Wamsley? Is he still on a crusade to reduce the feral
cat population in Australia? I remember this guy from way back, he made a lot
of people mad.

[http://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/wamsleys-
war/clip1/?n...](http://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/wamsleys-
war/clip1/?nojs)

Also, this article reads hilariously close to an essay from a climate change
"skeptic".

~~~
prawn
Yes, I remember him - was in the news recently, but can't remember what for. I
remember going on a school camp to his reserve as a kid. A friend of mine was
antagonising a large kangaroo and got attacked by it as a result -
entertaining at the time!

------
aaron695
My goodness what a stack of incredibly illogical arguments.

Life is important. OK, cats kill many animals during the week to live, many
per night even. We obviously have a moral obligation to save them from cats.

It's not true there are so many feral cats.... ok so we have to kill far less,
which is better for everyone.

TL;DL I like cats (because humans have breed them to be likeable) and I don't
like making hard choices.

------
pvaldes
A lot of the problem with feral cats is not the cats in fact, is the
environment. We need to start removing places from cats, not keep removing
cats from places.

