Posts tagged with Australia

96.5% of Australia’s Birds Safe from Cats!

12 Oct 2017

Photo courtesy of Hugh McGregor and Arid Recovery

Perhaps the most alarming headline announcing the findings of an Australian study last week was from Newsweek: “Cats Kill One Million Birds Per Day Pushing Many Species to the Point of Extinction.” In fact, the research itself makes no mention of extinctions. Indeed, as the researchers themselves explain in the paper’s abstract, “it remains challenging to interpret this mortality tally in terms of population viability or conservation concern for Australian birds.” [1]

Challenging, in part, because the mortalities attributed to cats* account for only “about 3.5% of Australia’s terrestrial bird population.”1 Funny, there was no mention of this little detail in Newsweek piece—or in the phys.org article upon which it was apparently based.

Far more troubling, though, was its omission from the media release announcing the publication of the research. Read more

Prank Culls

6 Apr 2015

Recent research from Australia finds that lethal methods might actually backfire, increasing an area’s population of free-roaming cats.

While evidence of TNR’s effectiveness continues to mount, the case for the “traditional” approach to community cat management (i.e., complaint-driven impoundment typically resulting in death) grows increasingly indefensible. Of course, the very fact that the debate over “the feral cat problem” persists illustrates the point: if trap-and-kill worked, the evidence would be plentiful by now, and the debate would have ended.

Nevertheless, there are those who cling desperately and inexplicably to the perverse hope that we might be able to kill our way to a day when there are simply no more outdoor cats (including pets). A recently published Australian study, however, challenges such wishful thinking with unusually compelling findings.

Indeed, the researchers involved found that the “low-level culling of feral cats” [1] led not to a population decrease, but an increase in their numbers. And, because the number of cats being trapped decreased over time, it appeared the lethal efforts were actually effective.

Don’t expect a press release from the American Bird Conservancy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, PETA, or any of the other organizations that continue to promote the senseless killing of outdoor cats. Read more