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.
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.
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
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.
Like humans aren’t?
You can start with yourself
Not part of the problem but thanks anyway!
Sure, but try proposing culling people instead and see how far you get…
lol what is this supposed to imply or perscribe?
Big fan of removing cats from my country in general, they are blight on the native wildlife.
It is not personal but they should all be gone. Boom in mice and rats for a bit after
All domestic cats should be fully indoor cats. Any domestic cats found outdoors should be killed. Nasty little disease spreading song bird killers.
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
Best summary of thread
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.
As somebody who (1) loves the beauty of the natural world and (2) lives in the USA, I’m hearing that NZ might be a most excellent place to retire, or even move to earlier.
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!
I wish “middlebrow dismissal” had become a more common term. It basically means a knee-jerk rejection of an idea without seriously engaging or investigating it. A “cache dump of prejudices” rather than argument.
This thread is absolutely filled with people who think they know better than kiwi conservationists that have studied and discussed this topic in depth.
Most people didn’t read the story, and don’t actually care, they are just feeling emotions and need to vomit it out. Even if they did read the story, most people don’t really understand things like ecology anyway so it’s unlikely to change their emotional reactions.
It’s still weird to dismiss the insane destructive power of the domestic shorthair. Killing is practically their only pastime
The “baby-fication” of pets is an incredibly damaging culture. People don’t see dogs and cats for what they are and it causes problems in the lives of animals and humans alike.
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.
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.
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.
If you care about cats and/or if you care about the environment, you keep your pet cats indoors. Simple as.
A lot of reactionary, super-sensitive, chronically online children in this post wailing into the void because they’re imagining some kind of housecat Auschwitz.
You can’t claim to care about the environment and be fine with feral cats eliminating some of the most unique biodiversity on the planet. You midwit pussies out there have to make a choice.
+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.
Maybe humans should quit playing god and trying to enforce the ecology they deem correct.
Fuck it, if they’re so well adapted, let cats wipe out everything they get their claws on and have them be the new evolutionary starting point. Maybe in a few hundred thousand years we’ll have entirely new winged or underwater feline subspecies, perfectly adapted to every remaining ecological niche.
It would certainly be funnier than this constant battle against windmills of our own making.You know, I can think of one species that’s a lot more harmful to the environment. Maybe the cats of NZ should start hunting non-native members of that species.
Are… are you talking about humans?
Yes, but I think we need to distinguish between the native population, which has proven capable of co-existing with the local ecosystem, and the settlers, who’ll need to be culled.
Maybe we can be a little animale and let the aborigines adopt the more tame settlers. Find them nice, loving homes, you know? The rest will unfortunately need to be euthanised.
So who’s native in New Zealand? How long have they been there. Or the fact that they are not white gives them special privileges.
Aborigines is Australia, the first people of NZ are the Maori and they’ve only been there since the 1300s
The Maori brought pigs and had farms. The “noble savage” trope is racist.
Humans are the species that brought cats to the island which are destroying the local ecosystem. So yeah, getting rid of people would help but that ain’t fucking happening so we have to correct our mistakes where we can.
Umm feed them. Then they’re not feral, their babies.
Then they start hunting for sports.
Cats are an invasive species in NZ, which has a lot more small critters living on the ground because there are no native predators to them.
Thats how you get MORE feral cats lmao
Profoundly disconnected from reality moment
Do us all a favor and go try to hug a feral cat.
I am a big fan of cats. However, if they live outside, they are feral. And they should not be allowed to keep living outside.
My preferred solution would be for people to take them in and feed them, but you definitely should not be feeding them while they are still living outside. Outdoor cats cause a lot of destruction to the ecosystem by overhunting small animals such as songbirds, even to the point of extinction.
yes but leave it to politicians to do everything in the worst possible way
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.
whats up with all the cat hating nazi’s here ?
Well for one they probably like kiwi and kakapo more, one are endangered and another one is critically endangered. And this applied to cat that roam outside and have no dependency on human.
Ironically if anything, house cat kill for fun and will kill everything that move and smaller than them, so kinda like nazi. And i said that as a dad of 4 cats. Cats are cute, and i wish it doesn’t come to this, but other animal deserve a chance to live too.
toxoplasma gondii spotted
I feel so terrible
Are you a feral cat?
Not sure if it’s a cat, but definitely feral.
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.
