The case against cats: Why Australia has declared war on feral felines

CNN ^ | April 26, 2019 | Julia Hollingsworth

[Trump20162020]

They're cute, they're fluffy, and they're public enemy number one in Australia.

Australia is at war -- with feral cats. By 2020, the government wants to kill two million free roaming cats, a large chunk of the total feral cat population, which is estimated to be between 2 and 6 million.

Some areas of Australia have gone even further. In the northeastern state of Queensland, there's even a council offering a $10 ($7) bounty per feral cat scalp.

[Rummyfan]

They're cute, they're fluffy...

Feral cats are neither. They'll take your finger off if you mess with them.

[Robert DeLong]

Tell us why, I’m not giving CNN a hit.

[Rummyfan]

The key word being FERAL....

[CondorFlight]

Feral cats can spread parasites and disease to other pets.

(and to humans).

They also decimate the bird population (and hey, yes, we need birds to eat insects).

[Dogbert41]

How are they supposed to kill theem?

[trisham]

Watch the mouse population as well as that of other small rodents explode.

[hinckley buzzard]

”Cute fluffy” cats are pure predators, and have threatened indigenous species unprepared to deal with them. Like any invasive species, cats can wreck an ecological balance. Australia has been cursed with many other invasive species introduced by people from around the world. Cats are just the latest to be recognized for what they bare.

[z3n]

the kitty stole your baby

[bgill]

If it weren’t for feral cats, we wouldn’t have such wonderful loving and smart cat furbabies. Thank you, feral mama for having your babies in the garage. They are doing a great job of keeping our snake and rodent population down.

With all the snakes in Australia, they should honor the cat like India does with cows.

Oooh, but, but they carry disease!!! Snort, every animal carries disease with humans being the worse.

[Afterguard]

Good point! If ya got no guns, ya just gotta net them and drown ‘em, I guess.

[Salgak]

“I’m hungry, where’s that cat ?????”

- Alf

[Yo-Yo]

Some areas of Australia have gone even further. In the northeastern state of Queensland, there's even a council offering a $10 ($7) bounty per feral cat scalp.

Pity that Australia doesn't allow any meaningful gun ownership.

A few enterprising teenagers with 10/22s could make quite a bit of money over the summer.

But their gun laws are so draconian that you can't own a 10/22 because it is semi-auto, and discharge outside of legal hunting or a recognized gun range is prohibited.

[lurk]

But they took all the guns. Aussie government has been goofed for 300 years.

[bgill]

I’ve never caught any disease from an animal. I have caught lots of diseases from humans.

[allendale]

There is a python problem in the Everglades. Instead of killing feral cats, neuter them, feed them python meat for two weeks, put electronic trackers and cameras on them, and then let them loose in the everglades. Feral cats are ferocious, wily hunters. They will get into python nests and even take on a mature python.

[Dogbert41]

Only for those not faint of heart!

[sparklite2]

Get rid of the cats?   You're daft, mate.

At their height, millions of the vermin swarm through farmland causing tens of millions of dollars worth of damage to infrastructure and livestock.

Bizarrely, the only places in the world to suffer from mice plagues are parts of Australia and a single province in northwest China.

The exact reasons for this remain a mystery, but it is suspected to be linked to the fact mice were introduced to Australia by European settlers and have little natural competition or predators.

Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation research officer Steve Henry warned last year that the country’s mice population can easily spiral out of control.

He told the ABC: “It’s pretty scary how quickly they can breed up. It’s quite concerning.

“People in the towns complain if they have one mouse in their house, but when plagues hit rural areas, people have hundreds of mice in their houses.”

[SkyDancer]

Hard to even own a .22 rifle there.

[Borges]