Australian Feral Cats Eat More Than a Million Reptiles Per Day
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
If you want to get into a blistering argument on the internet, just bring up feral cats, the descendants of our favorite domestic mouse catchers that are now living wild. While advocates argue they aren’t harming anyone and should be left alone, many conservationists see free-ranging cats as an environmental catastrophe. Recent studies suggest that in the United States alone, outdoor and feral cats kill 2.4 billion birds per year and as many as 12.3 billion small mammals. The U.S. is not the only place where the cuddly killers strike: Yasemin Saplakoglua at LiveScience reports a new study shows that feral cats in Australia are gobbling up over 1 million lizards a day, pushing some species to the brink of extinction.
To come up with that estimate, researchers looked at 80 previous studies that investigated cat predation on lizards, snakes and other reptiles, studying poo and stomach samples to determine how many and what types of creatures 10,000 Aussie cats ate. Cats, it turns out, aren’t picky when it comes to little reptiles. Researchers found 258 different species of reptiles in the samples, including 11 threatened species. The cats even snacked on some turtles.
According to AFP, the herps aren’t just an occasional kitty treat. “On average each feral cat kills 225 reptiles per year,” John Woinarski of Charles Darwin University, lead author of the study in the journal Wildlife Research, says. “Some cats eat staggering numbers of reptiles. We found many examples of single cats bingeing on lizards, with a record of 40 individual lizards in a single cat stomach.”
All told, extrapolating from the data, the researchers estimate the feral cat population in Australia, which totals between two and six million, now gobbles up 596 million lizards per year. Add in domestic pet cats that are allowed to roam outdoors and the total number jumps to 649 million reptiles lost to felines each year. That’s on top of 316 million birds cats kill annually in Australia.
Writing at The Conversation, the study authors say all that kitty carnage is likely taking a toll on Australia’s wildlife. “Such intensive predation probably puts severe pressure on local populations of some reptile species. There is now substantial evidence that cats are a primary cause of the ongoing decline of some threatened Australian reptile species, such as the great desert skink.”
Wildlife biologist Imogene Cancellare, not involved in the study, tells Maddie Stone at Earther that the new paper shows that cats fighting for survival in Australia’s hot, dry interior regions are gobbling up the most reptiles. “This means that in hot climates, feral cats are taking even more reptiles in order to survive,” she says. “As climate change continues to threaten biodiversity worldwide, the impact of feral cats will be felt even more severely than it is today.”
In fact, according to previous research, cat predation has been linked to the extinction of 20 mammal species in Australia already. That led the Australian government to initiate a cull in which it is trying to get rid of 2 million feral cats by 2020, reports Julie Power at The Sydney Morning Herald. “We are not culling cats for the sake of it, we are not doing so because we hate cats,” Australia’s Threatened Species Commissioner Gregory Andrews tells Power. “We have got to make choices to save animals that we love, and who define us as a nation like the bilby, the warru ([also called the] black-footed rock-wallaby) and the night parrot.”
People are getting creative to keep the cats out. Just last month, reports Brigit Katz at Smithsonian.com, the Australian Wildlife Conservancy switched on a 27-mile-long electric catproof fence, the largest in the world, to create a 23,000-acre cat-free preserve in Central Australia. The island nation of New Zealand, which is also seeing many of its iconic native species threatened by nonnative predators, has launched an even more ambitious project called Predator Free New Zealand. The goal is to rid the nation, which has no native land mammals besides bats, of feral cats, rats, possums, stoats and other predators by the year 2050.
In the United States, it’s unlikely we’ll see any wide-ranging control efforts like in Australia and New Zealand. Here, animal rights activists and ecologists have been squaring off for the last decade over a practice known at trap, neuter, and return, in which feral cats are captured, sterilized and vaccinated, then allowed to roam free. While that may, over time, help reduce the cat population, it still means billions of wild animals will become Fancy Feasts for years to come.
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Isn't that white cat cute??
This article is based on another , which has some very different... not so cute... photos:
One might almost think that cats are predators.......
They're carnivores.
Evening Bob....My brother shoots them on sight if seen in the paddocks..and he does not hesitate..He and I are a cat lovers always have been...He owns 2 cats...I have a Rag Doll cat at the moment....But once these cats have been born or turned feral none of which is their own doing..then they are fair game...Most ferals around here are Tabby and very hard to spot..any other colours are usually wiped out pretty quick by foxes, dingo's, eagles and shooters etc...No life for a cat either, diseased, starving and injuries etc... I feel sorry for them but know the damage they can and do to our Native wild life.....
I thought ferals were what you called certain people in Australia!
Morning Shona, donut?
Evening Lenny..Yep ferals animals people...same thing alll tarred with the same brush...Donut???...never could get over you mob eating those things for brekkie...You should try Vegemite and toast now that is real tucker.....
I believe that Shona just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich!
Hate to step in here but, I saw the Vegemite and, toast and, had to do it, tried it in college and, couldn't stand it but, I can say the same for donuts, to a point, I have a thing for crème filled donuts from Krispy Crème, gotta have them but, my favorite breakfast is two eggs over easy, grits and, Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage.
For the benefit of others who, like me, do not speak Austiiiilian, this is from Wikipedia:
Ahh but there is a certain way you have to eat toast and veggie...The toast has to be cool almost cold..have to use real butter not margarine...pile on the butter and then a swirl of veggie on top...heaven!!!...Grits??? what in the heck is that???
Yep Vegemite..Best thing out since sliced bread...
It's some gawdawful thing that tastes like sawdust and has the consistency of sand. Considered a delicacy in primitive societies...
Ever have black-strap molasses? Helps take away the aftertaste of a liverwurst sandwich. Both good for anemia.
water
½ teaspoon
salt
1 cup
hominy grits
add
black pepper (freshly ground)
1 tablespoon
butter
½ cup
sharp Cheddar cheese (shredded)
grits
[ɡrits]
NOUN
US
a dish of coarsely ground corn kernels boiled with water or milk.
coarsely ground corn kernels from which grits are made.
Watch yo mouth boy, I grew up on that.
Good evening Shona, hope all is well in the land of OZ.
Understandably both Oz and NZ are quite concerned with the feral cats. Introduction of non native species has been a disaster for both countries.
We have feral cats around my local, but we also have predators that help keep them in check, bobcats and coyotes. Still they are causing a lot of problems with the small native mammals birds and reptiles.
... sixty applications of jelly...
Nah, I like my grits with salt, pepper, butter (one pat) and, cheese. Then if you can find it, liver mush is good as well with breakfast as a side to yer eggs.
Good Lord...
... grits and liver mush...
...........
Don't knock it till you try it Bob.
Liver Mush
(6 servings) Printable Version
1 fresh hog liver
1 and 1/2 pounds of fatty pork
2 cups cornmeal
red pepper
salt
black pepper
sage
Cook liver and fat pork until tender. Remove from broth the liver only and grind. Add corn meal, peppers, and sage to taste. Add enough of the broth to soften mixture. Cook in saucepan until meal has cooked, stirring constantly. Put in mold. Press down until cold. Slice and serve cold or broil.
One of North Carolina's best loved breakfast foods is that Poor Boy's Pate', Liver Mush. This delicacy, fried crisp and served with grits and scrambled eggs, is a wonderful way to start the day.
Ohhh uuummm...that sort of looks "tasty" I guess.....Not quite sure what to make of it..sort of looks like porridge gone wrong...Liver mush???....Thanks but I think I will pass....
Shona, I thought the same thing when I first heard what I was going to have for breakfast one day but, I actually like grits better than "cream of wheat", (nasty stuff), and, liver mush sounds and, looks bad but, it is actually quite tasty.
Evening Kavika...All is well here in the Great Southern Land, thank you..very crisp, clear, cold and full moon tonight...Just past 11pm and I am heading for bed..the end of another day...Now have to go and find the damn cat it just went out and seems to know when I want to go to bed...Hope all is well across your side of the Pacific...Hoo roo for now.....
It sounds... er... um... uh... delicious...
LOL, chicken.
We're just beginning to realize how many of the cute critters wandering around Yuma (AZ) are in fact feral hunters.