Cats and wildlife – an Australian dilemma

The choice between,
Scarface Claw and Hush the invisible possum

Lynley Dodd is the author of children’s books about a mischievous cat called Scarface Claw. In his series of books Dodd captures what is both appealing and treacherous about cats. Scarface Claw is a fearless predator and at the same time he is brave and amiable. Here is an extract from one of his books.

Who is the roughest and toughest of cats?
The boldest, the bravest, the fiercest of cats?
Wicked of eye and fiendish of paw, is mighty, magnificent, Scarface Claw.

Scaredy cats tremble and people all shout, whenever this tomcat is out and about.
No matter what happens, whoever might call, there’s nothing that frightens him, nothing at all.

Dodd could be describing any one of the millions of feral and pet cats that inhabit Australia. They are fierce and ferocious killers as well as valued cuddly and charismatic companions.

Therein lies the huge dilemma that faces Australians today. We are confronted with the ongoing loss of our rare and unique wildlife at the ‘hands’ of millions of Scarface Claws.

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Grandma Poss works her magic and Hush becomes invisible

Mem Fox & Julie Vivas are famous for their children’s book ‘Possum Magic’.

In their story, Hush the invisible possum travels across Australia with her grandma in search of magic foods to make Hush visible again.

Sadly Australian wildlife desperately need a magic potion that makes them invisible to the crafty Scarface Claws.

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Boodie or Burrowing Bettong. Bettongia lesueur. 'Cat food on the hop'? Now only surviving on 4 islands of WA

The cat and the Boodie

Though there is sketchy evidence that cats may have arrived here from Asia up to a century before they arrived with the first fleet, we do know that that they arrived with the convicts and the military in 1788 as ships cats. From this first landing they quickly spread along the eastern seaboard and had established themselves in the wild by the 1820’s

The story of the Boodie illustrates the danger that small mammals faced with the rise of the cat. The Boodie, Bettongia lesueur is a burrowing bettong that was once the most widespread of the continents ‘Lilliputian’ mammals. It was found throughout arid and semi-arid areas of all the states but was declared extinct on the mainland by the mid-20th century. It is now only found on four Western Australian islands. Read more about the Boodie here.

Its demise was largely due to predation by cats and foxes. The loss of the Boodie and other small digging mammals that mixed organic matter into the soil has fundamentally changed the makeup of Australian soils, grassland vegetation and importantly its combustibility in the dry summer months.

For more information about likely benefits provided by small digging mammals to our vegetation click here

Click here to read about The Australian Wildlife Conservancies successful re-introductions of small mammals onto islands and protected reserves on the Australian mainland

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An artists impression of the Stephen's Island Wren, Xenicus lyalli

The story of the Stephens Island Flightless Wren

In 1894 David Lyall became the first lighthouse keeper on Stephens Island. It’s a small Island just above the south island of New Zealand. Though Lyall was a keen naturalist he thoughtlessly brought his pregnant pet cat ‘Tibbles’ for company.

He began to notice small dead birds left on his doorstep that he didn’t recognise and sent a sample away to be identified. Ornithologists were ecstatic because he had found a new species of wren unique to Stephens Island. Delight turned to disbelief when they discovered that the lighthouse keeper’s cats had wiped them all out. 

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Other Australian marsupials.

Many of our small mammals are being pushed to the edge of extinction by the rise and rise of the cat. Since the first fleet, 34 unique mammal species have disappeared, never to be seen again. Our report card on extinctions is uncomfortably humiliating with more than 100 mammal species listed as ‘near threatened’ and ‘critical’ by the international Union for Conservation of Nature

Cats are considered to be the single biggest threat to Australian mammals. They hunt, kill and eat bilbies, numbats, quokkas, quolls, bandicoots, birds, lizards and frogs in every corner of the country. The official government source states that ‘there are millions of feral cats in Australia, killing many millions of native animals every day’.

Cats kill how many?

John Woinarski Professor of conservation biology at Charles Darwin University
and one of Australia’s foremost wildlife researches has published a series of research papers looking at the effects of cats on wildlife. His findings are distressing. In addition to mammals, cats kill an estimated 377 million birds and 649 million reptiles every year in Australia.

Click to read 'One cat, one year, 110 native animals: lock up your cat its a killing machine', a recent article in the Conversation by John Woinarski and associates.

The long term survival of these small mammals is being threatened by cats;

Quokka, Setonix brachyurus now only surviving on Rottnest Island near Perth

Bilby, Macrotis lagotis

Numbat, Myrmecobius fasciatus

Tuan, Phascogale tapoatafa

A pet cat, Felis catus hunting native birds

Spotted Quoll, Dasyurus maculatus

Eastern Barred Bandicoot, Perameles gunnii. Photo Zoos Victoria

What’s a bandicoot?

You and I know that a bandicoot is a small Australian mammal, but lots of Australians have no appreciation of this cute little Aussie and how it’s being pushed right to the edge of extinction. That’s the opinion of Katherine Moseby, an ecologist from Adelaide who works with small mammals.

Her view is that “People are unaware because they don’t spend time with native animals. They really love and care about their cats, which is understandable. They don’t really go out and have a wildlife experience. But they look at their cat every day and think: Isn’t it gorgeous? Isn’t it beautiful? A lot of people don’t even know what native animals are. They could go extinct and people wouldn’t even know.”

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Steven Patrick Morrissey. English singer, songwriter, author and opponent of culling Australian feral cats

 What a dilemma!

In 2015 when the Australian Government announced their plan to cull 2 million feral cats by 2020, there was an outcry of distress. More than 160,000 signatures appeared on half a dozen online petitions begging Australia to spare the cats.

Leading the charge was actress Brigette Bardot pleading with the environment minister to stop ‘animal genocide’ and spare the cats. Singer Morrisey, formerly of the Smiths, suggested that “idiots rule the earth” and compared the plan to killing two million miniature Cecil the lions.
Read the extraordinary story about Cecil the lion here

Fortunately the minister for the environment had the backbone to persevere and the plan to cull cats went ahead with an estimated 211,560 cats killed during the first 12 months.  


Read an excellent article in the New York Times about our extinction crisis here

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Three professors make an impassioned plea.

Professor John Woinarski and colleages Professors Sarah Legge from ANU and Stephen Garnett from Charles Darwin Uni asked for ‘An end to endings’.

They proposed 10 recommendations to stop more Australian species going extinct.  Read their  article in 'The Conversion' here.

Paul Keating presenting his Redfern speech on 10th December 1992

In essence they are asking for culture change, respect for nature and long term commitment to repairing the damage that has been done.

Here is a summary of their 10 recommendations;

1. Treat wildlife with the respect it deserves for being an integral part of Australia for ‘hundreds of thousands, often millions of years’.
2. Our children and grandchildren should inherit a world full of wonder, beauty and diversity. We must make this unwavering commitment to them while we still can.
3. The Uluru Statement from the Heart could be used to redress a glaring constitutional deficiency - we are one of few countries that makes no commitment to protecting nature in our constitution. It’s time our constitution recognised our countries fundamental essential need to maintain a healthy natural environment
   
4. A long term vision that extends beyond a three year election promise is vital. Using conservation as an expendable political football is offensive and deceitful. The extent of our environmental problems will take an unwavering commitment for decades to fix. Keep politics out of it please.
5. Paul Keating’s Redfern speech in December 1992 proposed that we ‘should all see Australia through Aboriginal eyes – ‘more deeply feel the way the country’s heart beats; become part of the land; fit into the landscape’. He proposed changes to the school curricula, reverting to Indigenous names for landmarks, reinvigorating Indigenous land management, and fostering cultural respect’.
6. Live within our means through sustainable use of water, soil and other natural resources. They also recommended restraining population growth and setting a positive example to the world in our efforts to minimise climate change.
7. Applaud our successes. There are many examples of successful management and programs that have saved wildlife. The solutions are well known and shown to work. We should recognise jobs well done and build on them
8. Let’s get serious about funding. We currently spend only $200 million a year on the conservation of threatened species. This is about 10% of the US budget. Alarmingly Australians spend about $4 billion a year caring for pet cats
9. Put some ‘teeth and claw’ into environmental law. They are too discretionary and rarely enforced. If species go extinct under our watch there should be a formal inquest to find out how and why.
10. More money for research is critical. We need to know what species are out there, how they are managing and how to best protect them

Extinction is not inevitable. It is a failure, potentially even a crime – a theft from the future that is entirely preventable. We can and should prevent extinctions and safeguard and celebrate the diversity of Australian wildlife.

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Birds must feel safer when this cat is on the prowl

What can we as individuals do to help?

As a nation we have to ask the hard question - do we care enough about our native fauna to control our cats? I hope the answer is a resounding vote to protect our native fauna.

What an extraordinary difference it would make if every Australian family agreed to keep their pet cat inside at night? Even though the Australian Government is taking action, we all have to do our bit.

Here is a check list for cat owners.
Does your cat?

• Roam free at night? If the neighbour’s dog roamed free day and night we’d be pretty angry, so why is it OK to let our cats wander uncontrolled?
• Wear a collar with a bell? They do work if the bell is in good condition
  
• Wear a collar with a cat friendly sonar beeper that produces a high pitched tone that alerts  birds?
• Is your cat neutered? It also dampens their roaming and hunting instinct

As lovers of cats it’s time we started taking responsibility for the peril we have released on our wildlife. The cats are blameless, they’re just being cats.

The fault is ours for bringing them here and not controlling them when we knew the damage they were doing and are continuing to do.

We can learn from the experience of the Stephens Island lighthouse keeper and the Boodie – cats are silent super predators and they are busy while we sleep. Keeping our pet cats in at night and tackling feral cats will make native habitat safe for our vulnerable species.

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Scareface Claw is a crafty predator of our precious wildlife

Creating high quality wildlife habitat on farms is a critical part of the solution but if cats continue to roam free on our landscape, we are wasting our time. Our extraordinary wildlife habitats will just become a smorgasbord for feral and pet cats

Scarface Claw might be our lovable companion but when he’s out and about he’s 'wicked of eye and fiendish of paw'.

He’s a super killer of our precious natural heritage that sadly isn’t invisible like Hush the magic possum.

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Choosing our own animal totems will help protect and raise the profile of Australian fauna. Read more about it here in Totems for Australians - what is your totem?   
Also The re-wilding Australian culture

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