In Australia, ‘Cats Are Just Catastrophic’

[maestrob]

Feral cats take a heavy toll on the world’s wildlife, especially Down Under. The solution? Smarter traps, sharpshooters, survival camp for prey species, and the “Felixer.”

Read the full article with many photos free at the link below:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/16/scie ... =url-share

[jserraglio]

Thanks. These critters are one of the unfortunate byproducts of British colonialism, causing the extinction of many native species.

If they can’t be culled, they should all be caged.

[Holden Fourth]

This has happened a couple of times now. Driving across the Nullarbor Plain (Nullarbor means no trees) I've seen a rather large animal crossing the road in the distance between the a size of a terrier and a labrador and have been astonished to see that it's a feral cat. This is a huge size for a cat and I imagine that the ancestors of these creatures went feral well over a century or two ago and with unlimited access to native wildlife have, like goldfish, grown to suit their environment.

Cage them? No, cull them.

[jserraglio]

Here, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty …

[Lance]

We have feral cats around here [Upstate New York] ... not nearly that large, look like normal cats, can be a tad friendly but mostly not. A friend has one and I went to pet it and it greeted me with an usually powerful right paw as if to say "hands off!" Love cats but not that kind.

[Belle]

This is one of the world's biggest cats. The Norwegian Forest cat, along with the Maine Coon.



We have a wild dog problem in Australia. And wild horses (Brumbies). Our son lives on an acreage and wild dogs attacked and killed a small Joey (baby Kangaroo) behind his shed just this week. A woman from a farm outside Canberra (in Braidwood) told us a few years ago that huge kangaroos raped his Rhodesian Ridgeback dogs.