Interesting article on News today.
http://www.news.com.au/national/breakin ... 132e1e7122
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.
Dunxy wrote:Im going to get flamed hardcore on here for what im going to say...
marksman wrote:I have no problem with what you wrote Dunxy
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