A short article in our Sunday paper caught my eye this weekend. New Zealand economist Gareth Morris has launched a campaign to eliminate domestic cats from the country in order to preserve native bird populations. According to Morris and his supporters, cats represent a serious threat to many rare and endangered bird species in New Zealand, which has the highest rate of cat ownership in the world. Ironically, one of the reasons the article our paper caught my eye is I have been considering adopting a feral cat from a local program to control mice in our barn.
So, what do you think? Are cats useful companions and mousers or do you agree with Morris that they are ‘natural born killers’ that need to be eliminated?
I’m all for keeping pet cats inside. My cat has no need to catch her dinner. But the problem with these sorts of crusades is that they place the blame for the situation with rare birds, for example, on predators and not on habitat loss and environment destruction caused by humans. Keeping Kitty inside is a good thing, but if we “really cared about the environment” there are a lot of bigger fish to fry.
The situation in New Zealand is a little different from almost all other countries. ‘The animals of New Zealand have a particularly interesting history because, before the arrival of humans, less than 900 years ago, the country was completely free of mammals, except those that could swim there (seals, sea lions, and, off-shore, whales) or fly there (bats). This meant that all the ecological niches occupied by mammals elsewhere were occupied by either insects or birds, leading to an unusually large number of flightless birds, including the Kiwi, the Weka, the Moa, and the Kakapo. Because of the lack of predators even the bats spend most of their time on the ground. There are also about 60 species of lizard (30 each of gecko and skink), and four species of frog (all rare and endangered).’ Quoted from Wikipedia. Gareth Morris is mainly concerned about the flightless birds. They literally have no way to defend themselves or escape from cats and other small predators.
Emotions and philosophy aside, I wonder about the practicality of attempting to rid the island of all cats. A daunting task! Perhaps a strong penalty for free-roaming pets and an intense TNR (Trap/Neuter/Release) program for ferals would be more effective. TNR works better than simply removing cats from the immediate environment. Nature does abhor that vaccuum, so the remaining cats (ya never get them all…) breed to fill it. TNR allows “extinction” gradually. And lest you think I’m a cat hater, we currently have 4 indoor cats and just lost a 15 year old and a 23 year old this month…
Back in the time, St. Croix was having problems with rats coming in on boats, so the local governme
nt brought in mongoose(geese) to take care of the rats. Mongoose are “day hunters” and rats “nocturnal”, a small(?) oversight. St Croix lost a number of species, some very rare and only found on the island, because of it. Hopefully the New Zealanders will learn from previous mistakes made elsewhere. Then again how many times have we heard of insects or such brought in to control other problems, only to cause problems of their own, so maybe they won’t?
Bert, coincidentally, I had just read this article – Domestic Cats Kill More Small Wildlife Than Any Other Human Activity at http://bit.ly/XImalw when I jumped to yours. Although I’ve become a extension MG coordinator in semi-retirement, I worked in natural resource preservation and cats were always a problem, especially since any management actions upset so many cat lovers. Years ago I concluded it would be better for both me and my cats (I am owned by one and been owned by many over the years) if they learned to be (mostly) indoors. They live longer, healthier lives, and the birds and small mammals in my wildlife friendly yard live better as well.
We have a small farm in western NY and have probably had a 100 cats over the last 30 years. There were probably only 2 that ate birds and those were mostly barn swallows who literally attacked the cats! BTW- all our cats were vaccinated and fed. Feral cats may do more harm- although they seem to seek out our farm for the feline social welfare benefits!
Please read Alley Cat Allies response to the Reort issued in response to the USA report. I find it ironic one never hears from the Humane society or the ASPCA when this topic comes up. I am a strong proponent of TNR as well. All 5 of my cats-rescues/dumped off cats are spayed &neutered. They take good care of the mice & vole population on my property.
What response fro Alley Cat Allies? They just say that the study is biased and give no opposing evidence. Basically they are hangingtheir argument on the personal indictment of a researcher that was fired for killing cats. However, that doesn’t make data go away.