Image: Hugh McGregorNew research has shown feral cats cover over 99.8 per cent of Australia's land area. By comparison, 85.1 per cent of Australia has internet access.
That's a lot of feral cats, and they are causing huge problems for our wildlife.
40 of Australia's top environmental scientists brought together evidence from almost 100 studies in this latest research.
"Australia's total feral cat population fluctuates between 2.1 million when times are lean, up to 6.3 million when widespread rain results in plenty of available prey," said Dr Sarah Legge from The University of Queensland.
The scientists also looked at why some areas are more densely populated - such as small islands - and revealed cat densities are the same both inside and outside conservation reserves, such as National Parks. Declaring protected areas alone is clearly not enough to safeguard our native wildlife.
"At the moment feral cats are undermining the efforts of conservation managers and threatened species recovery teams across Australia," says Dr Legge.
Dr Legge says it is pushing conservation managers into "expensive, last resort conservation options", such as fenced areas and establishing populations on predator-free islands. These projects are essential for preventing extinctions, Dr Legge says - but they are not enough.
"They protect only a tiny fraction of Australia's land area, leaving feral cats to wreak havoc over the remaining 99.8 per cent of the country."
Mr Gregory Andrews, Australia's Threatened Species Commissioner, says Australia is the only continent on Earth other than Antarctica where the animals evolved without cats, which is a reason our wildlife is so vulnerable to them.
"This science reaffirms the importance of the ambitious targets to cull feral cats that I am implementing with the support of Minister Frydenberg under the Threatened Species Strategy," said Mr Andrews.
We also need to address the issue of feral cats living in heavily urbanised areas, According to Dr Legge, where their densities can be 30 times greater than in natural environments.
"As well as preying on the threatened species that occur in and near urban areas, these urban feral cats may provide a source of feral cats to bushland areas."
The research was funded by the Threatened Species Recovery Hub of the Australian Government's National Environmental Science Programme.
Comments
I support FTTFC (Fibre to the feral cat)
It will be available upon the release of the next CAT9 standard.
Forget the NBN, let's just put a pocket wifi on each cat!
Don't laugh. There are Coalition politicians who think that would actually work.
Why not pay a bounty for feral cats? Sure there'll be a spike in hunters shooting each other but in the end the cat population will surely drop dramatically.
I'm fairly sure many rural councils have or had bounty programs in place.
They are a sod to hunt though, if they know you are there, you will almost never see them.
There was a study somewhere in another country that they find it more effective to capture feral cats, neuter them, and release them back in the same location. Ideally each cat keeps to its own territory. However, it wouldn't gel here as cats kill local wildlife easily as an apex predator.
that was in the US where feral cats are largely concentrated around urban areas, outside these zones they fall prey to all manner of predators from coyotes, bears, wolverines, eagles, wolves, bobcats, lynx and so on.
There's few councils that pay bounties for cats, iron leg traps are banned now, shooting is viable if you know how cats behave (they're territorial and creatures of habit and easy to spot once you've learned how) -
Also, as falconxef says below it's hard to reconcile Australia having 85% coverage given human population coverage ;)
Almost reminds me of Richard Evans (can't remember the exact spelling) back in the 90s.
His solution though was extreme; he wanted all cats culled.
"85.1 per cent of Australia has internet access."
Where did you find this information...is it referring to population or geographical coverage?
ADSL 1500kbps is considered covertage too lol
While nothing is going to load, you're still connected.
No I find it hard to believe that 85% of Australia's landmass has internet coverage, ADSL or otherwise...would be great if authors ever cited sources.
We need more feral cats. Heaps more because there's still birds flying around shitting on my car. If the cats get rid of all the birds, I'll be supremely happy. Your my heroes you scruffy little feral moggies.
I wonder if we could just ban cats in Australia?
As noted the urban feral cat population contributes to the rural feral cat problem. The urban ferals commonly start life as undesexed, irresponsibly owned household cats. Animal welfare agencies have lobbied for years for mandatory desexing with little success except for South Australia. Mandatory desexing for cats and dogs in SA expected to commence in 2018. A huge step forwards.
I have been always been in favor that unless you are a registered breeder, mandatory desexing should be the norm for dogs, cats and rodents.
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