Feral felines in the news...

Varminting and vertebrate pest control. Small game, hunting feral goats, foxes, dogs, cats, rabbits etc.

Feral felines in the news...

Post by d3driver » 04 Oct 2017, 12:26 pm

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Re: Feral felines in the news...

Post by Dunxy » 04 Oct 2017, 1:21 pm

Im going to get flamed hardcore on here for what im going to say but I hope everyone can respect my opinion and read my whole post before replying!

I am a cat lover(all animals actually, but cats are my favorite) and I have owned them all my life and closely observe what they do.My sister is a Vet and a feline behavioral specialist and we often discuss these very topics. I love our native flora and fauna and go out of my way to protect it.Despite my love for cats if i see one in the bush, i will kill it, same goes for a dog (i love dogs too)if its obviously not a lost pet that will come to me, i have zero tolerance for what are true feral cats.

Now, on the subject of controlling feral cats there was a study done in recent years in a think Tasmania, a certain area with feral cat population was monitored and the density closely watched.They killed the vast majority of breeding females and all the toms, after this and for a considerable time the density of feral cats in this area actually increased as new males and females moved into the newly free'd up territory so the actual removal of these cats, at least in the short term, was detrimental for the native wildlife as there was more individuals in that area killing stuff.

I have observed this scenario in a stray cat population (there's actually at least 2 distinct colonies in the few blocks im observing) in an industrial estate i lease a factory in.I have removed dozens of cat's from this area by various means in the past few years and the numbers do increase, there's always going to be cats where there's rats (there's foodstores around and according to other guys in the street the potato man may be introduced a population...)'and short of fencing the entire industrial estate and removing all the ones inside its never going to change unfortunately.So I KNOW im going to cop hate for this but you really need to look at the big picture, the solution i see it in this instance im talking about is to trap , neuter and release.Therefore we have cats occupying the territory but cant reproduce.The density will stay the same rather than spiking to higher level all the time as we remove them and then more come in.Onetime I hit one of these colonies hard and pretty well removed the whole lot expect the matriarch who went into hiding and then what happened was nearly immediately juveniles from other bordering colonies came in and the numbers doubled until i removed another lot of the new arrivals.It seriously is a losing battle unless they allowed everyone in this estate to shoot the bloody things but we are limited to trapping and what not which means we then have to dispose of them which all costs time and money.

Now onto the actual damage these strays do (stray is not feral cat in the bush) in this industrial estate.Ive never seen them with a native animal of any description, predominately rats and feral slow birds, but they rarely chase the actual native birds because they are either big or scary or small and fast.No doubt the situation in the actual bush is different but i don't think the whole cats raping the native stuff in urban stray populations to be factual simply because what i have observed in over 30 years of cat ownership.Sure I have seen some natives killed, a few geckos and one wattle bird.Everything else rats,mice,pigeons and minors is what they are killing so are they actually doing harm when they remove pest birds predominately? Naturally I cant observe everything but the percentage of natives from what i observe is very small indeed, POSSIBLY small enough that they are actually doing more good than harm...This is kind of just like we whole "we didnt ban planes after 9/11" because hell, that would be a huge inconvenience so we live with the results.How many native animals are killed by cars? We dont ban them because unfortunately we need them and its just collateral damage.Even if we had some magic wand and removed every cat from Australia many animals are still going to die from all the other crap that is killing them that nobody every talks about.

Even though i know it may not actually helps I still do shoot the buggers in the bush regardless and i hope everyone else does here as well, just the reality is not what a lot believe.The same kind of thing happens with feral fish populations which is something else i am very active in removing and studying, there's always going to be X amount of animals coming into a given food source if the biomass is there to support them. Ive spent many hours discussing this with marine biologists who have all confirmed everything I had suspected from my observations over the years.

What we really need to do is ban pet shops from selling kittens period, you want a kitten go to a bloody pound. and ban ownership of entire cats from everybody except registered breeders of purebreds, nobody needs and entire cat and its all these irresponsible pricks who have entire animals reproducing that cause or at least magnify a lot of these problems.'

Cats have actually played an important role in human evolution by controlling pests around grain stores allowing larger populations to survive cold climates and have time to do other things like learn stuff make tools etc.They still do help us by controlling rats and mice that live all over the place.I allow these f@#$rs to hunt in my factory because otherwise it will be infested just like the guy next door who doesn't let them in.
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Re: Feral felines in the news...

Post by Oldbloke » 04 Oct 2017, 1:22 pm

One million native birds a day! Now triple that by including fox kills.

Can't shoot foxes or cats in NPs though.

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I was out Monday chasing Fallow. But shot a fox instead in SF. Probably fewer foxes in SF than NPs breeding grounds. How stupid is that.
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Re: Feral felines in the news...

Post by pete1 » 04 Oct 2017, 1:48 pm

Dunxy wrote:Im going to get flamed hardcore on here for what im going to say but I hope everyone can respect my opinion and read my whole post before replying!

I am a cat lover(all animals actually, but cats are my favorite) and I have owned them all my life and closely observe what they do.My sister is a Vet and a feline behavioral specialist and we often discuss these very topics. I love our native flora and fauna and go out of my way to protect it.Despite my love for cats if i see one in the bush, i will kill it, same goes for a dog (i love dogs too)if its obviously not a lost pet that will come to me, i have zero tolerance for what are true feral cats.

Now, on the subject of controlling feral cats there was a study done in recent years in a think Tasmania, a certain area with feral cat population was monitored and the density closely watched.They killed the vast majority of breeding females and all the toms, after this and for a considerable time the density of feral cats in this area actually increased as new males and females moved into the newly free'd up territory so the actual removal of these cats, at least in the short term, was detrimental for the native wildlife as there was more individuals in that area killing stuff.

I have observed this scenario in a stray cat population (there's actually at least 2 distinct colonies in the few blocks im observing) in an industrial estate i lease a factory in.I have removed dozens of cat's from this area by various means in the past few years and the numbers do increase, there's always going to be cats where there's rats (there's foodstores around and according to other guys in the street the potato man may be introduced a population...)'and short of fencing the entire industrial estate and removing all the ones inside its never going to change unfortunately.So I KNOW im going to cop hate for this but you really need to look at the big picture, the solution i see it in this instance im talking about is to trap , neuter and release.Therefore we have cats occupying the territory but cant reproduce.The density will stay the same rather than spiking to higher level all the time as we remove them and then more come in.Onetime I hit one of these colonies hard and pretty well removed the whole lot expect the matriarch who went into hiding and then what happened was nearly immediately juveniles from other bordering colonies came in and the numbers doubled until i removed another lot of the new arrivals.It seriously is a losing battle unless they allowed everyone in this estate to shoot the bloody things but we are limited to trapping and what not which means we then have to dispose of them which all costs time and money.

Now onto the actual damage these strays do (stray is not feral cat in the bush) in this industrial estate.Ive never seen them with a native animal of any description, predominately rats and feral slow birds, but they rarely chase the actual native birds because they are either big or scary or small and fast.No doubt the situation in the actual bush is different but i don't think the whole cats raping the native stuff in urban stray populations to be factual simply because what i have observed in over 30 years of cat ownership.Sure I have seen some natives killed, a few geckos and one wattle bird.Everything else rats,mice,pigeons and minors is what they are killing so are they actually doing harm when they remove pest birds predominately? Naturally I cant observe everything but the percentage of natives from what i observe is very small indeed, POSSIBLY small enough that they are actually doing more good than harm...This is kind of just like we whole "we didnt ban planes after 9/11" because hell, that would be a huge inconvenience so we live with the results.How many native animals are killed by cars? We dont ban them because unfortunately we need them and its just collateral damage.Even if we had some magic wand and removed every cat from Australia many animals are still going to die from all the other crap that is killing them that nobody every talks about.

Even though i know it may not actually helps I still do shoot the buggers in the bush regardless and i hope everyone else does here as well, just the reality is not what a lot believe.The same kind of thing happens with feral fish populations which is something else i am very active in removing and studying, there's always going to be X amount of animals coming into a given food source if the biomass is there to support them. Ive spent many hours discussing this with marine biologists who have all confirmed everything I had suspected from my observations over the years.

What we really need to do is ban pet shops from selling kittens period, you want a kitten go to a bloody pound. and ban ownership of entire cats from everybody except registered breeders of purebreds, nobody needs and entire cat and its all these irresponsible pricks who have entire animals reproducing that cause or at least magnify a lot of these problems.'

Cats have actually played an important role in human evolution by controlling pests around grain stores allowing larger populations to survive cold climates and have time to do other things like learn stuff make tools etc.They still do help us by controlling rats and mice that live all over the place.I allow these f@#$rs to hunt in my factory because otherwise it will be infested just like the guy next door who doesn't let them in.



I love cats too, make good pets. Ill shoot them, no problems in the bush. I like to walk through the bush and listen to the birds it's part of our country and already lost to many species, certain people want to stop us shooting cats as they think there cute.
Remember the Bendigo girl bullied on social media for killing a feral cat, these people don't think logical like us.
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Re: Feral felines in the news...

Post by marksman » 04 Oct 2017, 2:15 pm

I have no problem with what you wrote Dunxy :thumbsup:

Oldbloke you are keen mate,
its a hard time of the year to find fallow, the doe's are back in the bush pregers and the bucks are hiding while they are growing new head gear
you might be giving me some inspiration :drinks:
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Re: Feral felines in the news...

Post by d3driver » 04 Oct 2017, 2:15 pm

Dunxy wrote:Im going to get flamed hardcore on here for what im going to say...


Why? You make a well reasoned and logical argument. I love cats too, have 2 myself, and they are inside only. I can see what you mean about the population migrating to fill a void. Also, the idea of catch/neuter/release is a good one. I doubt it'll happen though, and if it did it would require a concerted coordinated effort county wide. So it's definitely not going to happen...
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Re: Feral felines in the news...

Post by YoungBuck » 04 Oct 2017, 2:46 pm

I own both a feline (indoor only) and a canine. Had the cat for 3 years now and the pup only a few weeks.
I also shoot both feral variants of them, though yet to see a wild dog. The numbers are funny, of all the bush hunting I've done over the last 2.5 years, I've only seen the one cat in SF, which I put down with the .22 mag. Considering they are apparently having an enormous impact, I certainly expected to see a lot more of them.
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Re: Feral felines in the news...

Post by Bigjobss » 04 Oct 2017, 2:54 pm

Well reasoned and throughtfull Dunxy.

Not gonna lie, I instantly thought of Sigourney Weaver in a mechanical exoskeleton when you mentioned the "matriach" of the felines, sounds like one tough bitch.
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Re: Feral felines in the news...

Post by Oldbloke » 04 Oct 2017, 3:01 pm

marksman wrote:I have no problem with what you wrote Dunxy :thumbsup:

Oldbloke you are keen mate,
its a hard time of the year to find fallow, the doe's are back in the bush pregers and the bucks are hiding while they are growing new head gear
you might be giving me some inspiration :drinks:


I don't have a problem hunting them all year. Spotted a doe running across a track. But an impossible shot.

Foxes next week.
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Re: Feral felines in the news...

Post by Oldbloke » 04 Oct 2017, 3:07 pm

Youngbuck, there are more cats than you think.
I often smell them but like you see them rarely.
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Re: Feral felines in the news...

Post by Oldbloke » 04 Oct 2017, 3:15 pm

Dunxy is of course correct. If you create a voide the surrounding cats, or foxes tend to move into an area. But that means the overall population is a little less dense. So still good to shoot the buggers. The population will then increase to a sustainable level. But the natives in the mean time get a chance to also increase their numbers. Same happens whatever you shoot. The environment dictates the population density. We just tinker with it unless the numbers are reduced to zero or close to it.

PS. Sorry mate but I'm a cat hatter. But do respect people to have them as pets so long as they are controlled, unlike my nabour.
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Re: Feral felines in the news...

Post by Bent Arrow » 04 Oct 2017, 8:59 pm

We have a cat because the kids want one. It lives in our house with a purpose built outside run. I don't hate cats per se, but feral cats are on the top of my shoot list when hunting. Anybody that works in feral animal control, or has hunted for a while, will tell you that persistent pressure is required to have any meaningful impact on controlling animal density. Shooting (or trapping, netting, poisoning....) some small fraction of the regional population by removing most of the population at a site scale, followed by a period of no active control that lets the site scale population recolonise from the regional population, and then saying that the control method is ineffective because the density of animals at the site scale increased is, how can I say this....... ...... Yeah that's pure genius.

Properties that are managed for conservation that want to remove ferals build big ass fences to prevent recolonisation. Yes it is prohibitively expensive for landscape scale restoration, but it's clear recognition that preventing or limiting recolonisation is essential to achieve protection for species that are highly sensitive to predation
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Re: Feral felines in the news...

Post by Member-Deleted » 05 Oct 2017, 2:09 am

Dunxy I've shot and trapped pests all my life or at least since I was very young still going as I agree with some of your theory I disagree in
some as well
The part where when you removed most of the cats from an area they came back in larger numbers that's a pretty loaded statement
because its normal for pests to move in on a territory after the others have been removed common sense but to cut the population
on any pest, pressure has got to be kept on them you can't ease up at all the only way pests rebuild their numbers in a given area is
when the pressure is backed off
Pest control is an ongoing thing not like governments and the like think no money this year so we'll let the pests go this year
Its not like that I know if I let my run go for a season the pests would be back and keep breeding until I start shooting again and it could
take 3 to 5 yrs to catch that 1 season up this knowledge I've picked up from doing this stuff for 50yrs
Dogs and cats in the wild do increase in numbers in the wet years because access to them is limited but when it dries up larger numbers
are shot then numbers decrease as the years go by until the next big wets then it all starts again but pressure is the key
Only a fool would think that the feral cats or dogs or any feral for that matter could be shot out they tried with the buffalo nearly got there
but stopped dropped the pressure now they're building in numbers again
My thoughts on where you are if the cats came back after ousting all but a couple and you now let them into your area you have
dropped the eight ball Cats and dogs don't stop breeding because there are other cats or dogs in the area
You say you have spoken with marine biologists and they agree with you lets not forget the humble cane toad it was the agreement
of several learned scientists to bring it to Australia and look where its at now devastating the native animals where ever it goes
Back to cats its not only the native animals they kill ( I presume of which the numbers are very close to what they predict ) its the
diseases they carry and pass to cattle rendering them barron and unsaleable if they have the disease denutting the cats and letting
them go would cost the tax payer dearly
Some property owners have been ruined by this disease in their breeders so cat numbers have to be cut it will be a life long thing
most likely but that's the best we've got at the moment shooting, baiting ,and trapping then keep the pressure on
Maybe a bounty because I remember once the bounties on feral pests up here was dropped I doubled my kill tally in 3 yrs
but the last 2 years have seen a decline in numbers constant pressure and good shooting conditions take its toll on feral pest numbers

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