If you read my blogs on the History of Cats,
You know that historically, at some point, cats had a bad reputation caused by Humans.
Well, the Human race has done it again!
In post five of my blog, I talked about letting two cats breed at will and then allowing those offspring to breed at will, you could have 49 thousand cats over a ten year period.
Why are there feral cats to begin with?
The reason why there are feral cats is the same reason worldwide. It starts with non- responsible and uncaring pet owners who should have never adopted a pet. Some domestic cat owners do not neuter or spay their cats. These cats either escape from their home or they are allowed outdoors where they mate with other cats. The worst part is some people just abandon their cats as I have experienced first-hand.
According to CNN, “They’re cute, they’re fluffy, and they’re public enemy number one in Australia.”
According to the Australian government they estimate 2 to 6 million feral cats live in Australia.
By the year 2020 the government plans on killing over two million free-roaming feral cats.
Some areas of Australia have gone even further. In the northeastern state of Queensland, there’s even a council offering a bounty per feral cat scalp, a policy that many have lambasted as “cruel.”
The following are excerpts from Cable Network News.
The first cat is thought to have arrived in Australia at some point in the 17th century. Since then, their number has ballooned, with the population today estimated to cover 99.8% of the country. Although feral cats belong to the same species as domestic cats, feral cats live in the wild where they are forced to hunt for survival.
For cats, native species are easy prey. Cats are believed to kill more than 1 million native birds and 1.7 million reptiles across Australia every day, a spokesperson for Australia’s Department of the Environment and Energy told CNN, citing scientific research.
But the plan has come under fire — and surprisingly, conservationists are among the critics. Tim Doherty, a conservation ecologist from Deakin University in Australia, agrees that feral cats take a “big toll” on Australia’s native species, but believes the cull is based on shaky scientific research.
“There’s not really a reliable way to estimate across an entire continent, and if you’re going to set a target, and if you want it to be meaningful, you need to be able to measure your progress towards it.”
The Australian Government is airdropping frozen sausage laced with poison across the Outback.
Hmm… can the endangered species also eat the sausage?
CNN continued…
Another, more pressing issue, is that merely killing a cat doesn’t necessarily save bird or mammal lives — the cat needs to have been living in an area that has threatened animals, he said. And bounties needed to be focused on a certain area, Doherty said. “It needs to be concentrated rather than a scatter gun approach,” he said.
While cats are a big problem, the government had focused heavily on them at the cost of other, more politically sensitive issues like habitat loss caused by urban expansion, logging and mining. “There’s a possibility there that cats are being used as a distraction to some extent,” he said. “We also need to have a more holistic approach and address all threats to biodiversity.”
What I’m hoping for is that in the end while walking up to the pearly gates of Heaven,
To my amazement I will see…
Thank you for reading Kitty Village News.
S&B