Our telecommunications industry boasts that 85 per cent of Australians have internet coverage.
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That pales in comparison with our feral cat population, with estimates that the invasive species now covers more than 99.8 per cent of the country.
This week, the federal government announced it had waged war against more than two million feral cats – estimated to make up a-third of the total population in Australia. It is coughing up $5 million by way of grants to various community groups across the country to help in its fight against feral cats.
More than 120 native species may well be at risk of extinction if something isn’t done to eradicate or at least make a sizeable dent in the feral cat population in this country.
It is estimated that every feral cat in Australia can kill between three and 20 native animals a week – ranging from small lizards and crickets, through to small mammals, including wallabies.
The problem is, the feral cat is a resilient creature and has proven surprisingly difficult to stop. These efficient killers are hard to trap and have been known to ignore baits.
This latest move to cull more than two million of them is the most serious effort to date.
The plan is for municipalities (or shires as some mainland states call them) around the country to provide free euthanasia of all trapped feral cats.
Despite what some animal rights groups say, this isn’t about a dislike of cats. This is about stopping a wild animal that is decimating this country’s native wildlife.
Even the RSPCA has come out in support of the humane trapping and killing of feral cats where they are proven to have killed native species.
The fact is, plenty of people have tried in the past – unsuccessfully – to make a reasonable dent in the feral cat population.
In 1997, the Mornington Peninsula Shire adopted a 24-hour cat curfew, which required that all moggies be contained to their owners’ properties, with first-offence fines of $100, rising to $300 for subsequent infractions.
That effort failed because cat owners simply ignored the curfew.
Let’s hope for the sake of our native wildlife that this latest incursion into the feral cat population does more than simply scratching the surface of a very real, mounting ecological problem.
