New Zealand has announced plans to eradicate feral cats by 2050, as part of efforts to protect the country’s biodiversity.
Speaking to Radio New Zealand on Thursday, conservation minister Tama Potaka said that feral cats are “stone cold killers” and would be added to the country’s Predator Free 2050 list, which aims to eradicate those animals that have a negative impact on species such as birds, bats, lizards and insects.
Cats had previously been excluded from the list, which includes species such as stoats, ferrets, weasels, rats and possums, but Potaka used the interview to announce a U-turn.
Do these people actually KNOW any cats? You can’t eradicate them. It’s impossible, they are WAY smarter than we are.
More likely, they’ll get angry at the eradication measures, and eliminate the humans instead.
Don’t say I didn’t tell you so.
We are the extinction event
Why just not eat them?
I find it kind of amazing that humans will constantly look outwardly as if everything that is happening isn’t a direct result of their own failures as nature’s caretakers. Yes, let’s kill the cats because of all the havoc they’re wreaking on our biodiversity but let’s also ignore all the havoc that we ourselves continue to wreak. Let’s applaud ourselves for caring so much about the environment by slaughtering one of man’s two best friends. Irresponsible cat owners aside, there are ways that (key phrase here) cost money that involve a well-known acronym, TNR to combat feral cat populations. They can be re-homed or put aboard ships to tackle rodent problems at sea and become resident sailor cats. There are better ways than blindly dropping poison fucking sausage and installing automatic poison spray machines around town. As if that won’t result in any accidental deaths of spayed neighborhood outdoor cats with chips, collars, and loving families. This thread has absolutely lost the plot if everyone agrees with the methods put forth in the article. I can assure you, this is some grade A bs.
There are not cheaper ways, though. It’s a monumental task and if it is done incompletely, it was pointless to even undertake.
Most feral animals can’t just be “re-homed”. Cats don’t need humans to be happy and to thrive. They don’t need a house. They don’t need a ship. The most we should do for them is give them a cat island (where they would likely turn cannibal and start consuming each other within a generation).
The dairy industry is significantly more damaging to NZ’s ecology than some feral cats. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be addressed, but there are measures already in place. It’s important to keep perspective and not be distracted by media.
It’s possible to do two things at a time. Cats and dairy are not mutually exclusive.
Cats must only be indoor pets. We can easily separate pet mice and rats from their feral counterparts and we need to do the same to cats. And I am a cat person big time.
+1 for indoor only cats. Those cunts are ruthless - they can’t not murder wild animals and we’ve got a lot of native birds here so keep em indoors.
Same.
Love cats.
Keep them in doors.
Outdoor cats and feral cats are walking, prowling ecological disasters.
Save the kiwis!
Cats are remarkably capable predators, and cat owners are remarkably irresponsible.
Letting your cat be an “outside” cat is bad enough for the environment. Not spaying/neutering said “outside cat” is how we get feral cats everywhere.
That said, I dont love the vague “eradicate feral cats” language. Would greatly prefer a broad spectrum spay/neuter/tag program to naturally reduce their population.
Predator-free NZ was always destined to ruffle some feathers though.
As someone who donates significantly to spay/neuter efforts (in the U.S.), these irresponsible people piss me the fuck off. To the extent that I have cut people out of my social circle over the issue.
My fucking neighbors just keep letting their outdoor only cats reproduce and get mad when they meow for kibble. It’s the worst. My county has a well funded TNR and last litter program, but they don’t give a shit. I’ve done TNR of at least 8 or 9 cats and they just keep coming.
These aren’t even the completely wild and feral cats or anything (since the shitty neighbors feed them from time to time) although I’m sure their offspring has made some feral cats by now. It’s horrible.
I don’t think just spaying is enough. It’d have to be capture or even worst case euthanize. Leaving cats and any nonnative predator is especially harsh on local species each second they are in the wild because new zealand is one of the few places with flightless birds like the kakapo, which are critically endangered (just one step away from being extinct in the wild)
Spaying and neutering and releasing is more effective because then they still compete for the same resources, pushing reproduction down. I wonder if they can use that she other methods to get the population down to zero.
That’s when you are trying to control the population. These are invasive species, worse than that, invasive predators. Eradication and control are two different things.
Neither of those solves the problem entirely, but an eradication aims to keep the population of invasive species much lower than control. Any amount of invasive predators, especially as effective as feral cats, needs to be controlled.
Feral cats and pet cats are just two different things, like feral pigs and wild pigs. Even pet cats need to be tightly controlled, every bird a pet cat kills is multiplied in aggregate, these things we love are absolutely brutal.
Yes that’s why I said “I wonder if they can use that
sheand other methods to get the population down to zero.” Zero means eradication.I’m sorry, that’s totally fair, I don’t mean to sound dickish. They can’t hit zero. Australia is a model for how bad invasive cats can get, and the cat is already out of the bag, so to speak. They either target aggressive goals, which are primarily culling mixed with chemical and some limited physical spay/neutering programs. But when you are talking bang for buck, it’s really easy to look to culling primarily.
Spay nueter programs are much more expensive and usually donor funded. You gotta do a lot to an animal to even modestly safely remove it’s sex organs, especially females. I wouldn’t be surprised if they pop up in NZ, privately funded, in addition to the other programs. Desexing is still is the best way to deal with an active colony with a food source, you are right.
New Zealand has no native predators, and cats are extremely good predators.
These aren’t house cats that got lost, these are cats that are entirely wild and are now an invasive species. TNR would still decimate the local fauna while waiting for nature to take its course.
They also can’t be housed like you might do with a house cat turned stray.
as much as I love house cats, in New Zealand, the feral cats are an ecological apocalypse.
they gotta put thiel on that list
Rats are already on it.
I adopted mine, got her spayed, and she absolutely never goes outside. Not that she would, she’s too much of a chicken shit to bother trying to get out.
look up austrialian cat plague…at a certain point exterminating them is the only realistic option
To the people thinking “oh poor kitties”. In New Zealand, cats are like terminators (or more accurately, Predators from those movies). Pretty much everything evolved to be incredibly easy pray for cats. Sure, it sucks that cats have to die, but they’re an incredibly invasive species that hunts the native species to extinction. They should’ve never been imported in the first place.
Like humans aren’t?
New zealand is extremely prone because its home to flightless birds and other similar species that never grew up against land predators of this nature. That’s why cats and even rats are especially dangerous. These flightless birds have no real way of protecting their young and even themselves.
It’s sad for cats because we see them as companions and pets, but new zealand holds a lot of critically endangered species that simply cannot exist anywhere else
All of Oceania is this. There’s a lot of unique land animals that evolved with no threat. European colonisation really fucked that entire region and the ecosystems within.
On average, each roaming, hunting pet cat kills more than three animals every week. The numbers add up. On average, over a year each roaming and hunting pet cat in Australia kills 186 animals. This number includes 110 native animals (40 reptiles, 38 birds and 32 mammals).
That’s for Australia’s 3.7M pet cats that aren’t kept indoors 24/7. So that’s approx 407M native animals killed each year by cat lovers that don’t responsibly take care of their cat—71% of cat owners. Factor in other contamination and habitat destruction, you can expect that to be closer or even over half a billion native animals killed each year.
So, yeah, Oceania countries will hunt and kill cats. And anyone that doesn’t keep their cat inside or at least bell it’s collar, is a real piece of shit. Certainly doesn’t give a fuck about animals and the environment. It’s a totally different part of the world to Eurasia where it’s fine to just have strays all over the countryside because they’re actually a part of the functioning ecosystem.
Source: https://biodiversitycouncil.org.au/resources/the-impact-of-roaming-pet-cats-on-australian-wildlife
That’s pet cats and doesn’t count the damage that feral cats do.
Here claims that Australia’s Cats Kill Two Billion Animals Annually, with feral cats killing 1.4 Billion.
I’ve personally scraped up native birds and possums that were killed by neighbours roaming pet cats. Most not eaten. And some just paralysed and left that I called WIRES wildlife rescue for. It’s heartbreaking. These poor little critters didn’t deserve an ending like that.
Cats like hunting. Please keep your kitty inside.
Time for them to catch up in evolution’s arms race or be left behind with the other failures like the dodo and the dinosaurs
Not how evolution works.
Survival of the fittest? No? Am I a slider? Did I land on a world where natural selection isn’t one of the evolutionary pressures on the ecosystem?
One of yes. Along with gene drift and flow, and genetic mutation. But our imperialist, capitalist societies really love to lean into the survival of the fittest as the end all, be all of evolution and life. There’s a whole lot more to the complexities of nature even if our “might equals right” societies don’t see it.
I wouldn’t bother. If they’re this simple and loud about whatever they think they comprehend of evolution and natural selection concepts, you know them and their cat are ironically nature’s food in the first 48 hours detached from society’s teet. Lucky for them, we keep getting better at keeping the weakest around. Mike Judge does a good film about it.
I’m sorry that your love of cute, cuddly animals has allowed you to suspend your belief in basic science. I’d hoped you were made of sterner stuff. Perhaps on your next interaction, you could dispense with the backhanded insults and argue the actual point?
No one in New Zealand actually wants to go around killing cats. Euthanizing them is the tool of last resort, and it’s generally prioritized for areas where urgency is high and other more humane solutions are hard to implement.
You can’t fuck around in an island ecosystem. You have to make hard choices in order to preserve the lives of the native plants and animals.
I feel so terrible
Are you a feral cat?
No, probably just someone with empathy who recognizes the shit situation humans created and how it’s going to play out in the lives of New Zealand’s cats.
and yet inexplicably isn’t vegan
Not sure if it’s a cat, but definitely feral.
All domestic cats should be fully indoor cats. Any domestic cats found outdoors should be killed. Nasty little disease spreading song bird killers.
It’s unfortunately far more than just birds. They kill billions of reptiles, fish, amphibians, and mammals each year. Not to mention their toxoplasmosis has been found in ocean otters (just an example of something far removed from the daily goings of a cat) and in the soil and ground water, as well as our foods. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7033973/
Very true.
Not sure why this is such a controversial take. House cats should indeed not be outside, unless they are on a leash.
Because people have an extreme case of the feels for cats and judge their morals purely based on what’s cute, and are fine with the deaths of cows and other animals but not pets. A disturbing amount of people care about the fully arbitrary distinction between pet and animal
Most people have not seen a feral cat and assume that they are just domestic cats living rough. Couldn’t be further from the truth. Savage predators loose in the bush and Australia has millions of them.
Yep, there’s a wild difference between “feral” city/suburbia cats, and actual wild feral cats.
I used to live in a pretty rural area in Hungary, butt end of suburbia, backing into the endless fields of wheat and corn, interrupted only by small patches of “woodland” (really just a dozen or so trees occupying a small area, enough to block the view but not big enough to house any larger animals, it’s mostly birds, rodents and feral cats).
There used to be maybe ten colonies of feral cats in my immediate area, and those fuckers would fuck you up proper. They hated humans, and would cross half a field, a four lane road, and a canal just to attack you. Many a times I had to run from the bus stop to home to avoid a trip to tetanus and rabies land…
Definitely a cautionary tale.
australia aiming to be more evil than north korea
Protecting native species from an invasive predator is not evil.
You have to go a long way to be more evil than NK
New Zealand needs its “Emu War” moment.
In that they’ll discover a task that sounds easy will be practically impossible to accomplish?
Feral cats cause the ultimate destruction to local wildlife. They are so common, one of the worst invasive species. And New Zealand’s an island with precious endemic wildlife not found anywhere else in the world. So yeah - it’s about time! Bravo NZ for doing the right thing.
Edit: They need to do this in Hawaii too!
Absolutely. Those cats are destroying boobies. Unforgivable.
