Australia airdropping lethal sausages to control cat population

[Lynarii]

I'm new to this information. Is there some reason why rounding up the cats and spade/neuter wasn't working? I have to assume that something went really wrong there, because dropping poisoned food randomly into an area seems like a last resort approach after other attempts have failed.

Because all the proposed solutions are doomed to failure really. To actually begin to control the feral cat population (which you do need to do, just because they make good pets doesn't mean they're good to have out in the ecosystem) you first have to stop humans from introducing more on a constant basis. As long as any dipshit can buy their precious little kid a kitten for christmas then dump the cat into the wild once it's grown up and they don't want to care for it anymore, you're going to have a feral cat problem.

[Blobfish]

Why not just train the kangaroos to go around punching the cats to death? You're getting less cool every day, Australia.

Because the Roos are trained to attack invading paratroopers who drop out of the sky ..

[Themius]

There would have to be a lot of cats to do this. Birds arent that stupid tho.

There are several species of birds that have gone extinct due to cats. They populate quickly and don't have too many predators.

[Socialhealer]

Something like that wouldn't go over very well here in merica the blue hairs would go ape shyt and be in the streets. Plus PETA would be pissed as well even though they capture and euthanize (kill) them anyway as a animal shouldn't be a pet and they'd rather see die before being one.

In addition to mammals, cats kill an estimated 377 million birds and 649 million reptiles every year in Australia. (In the United States, the numbers are even more striking: Scientists estimate that free-roaming cats kill 1.3 to 4 billion birds and 6.3 to 22.3 billion mammals every year.)

just tell them about the billion birds & billions of mammals cats kill then watch them stfu.

[Oncereborn]

I've never heard of this airdropping sausages and suspect it may be make believe.

Something I had heard they were trialing was using a device that can tell if there's a cat walking by and when it does it sprays them with a poison. Then the cat later cleans itself, ingesting the poison on its coat and killing itself.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-...-lands/9269240

I've read that tasmanian devils have kept the feral cat and fox population in Tasmania low. There have been talks to reintroduce tazzie devils back to mainland Australia, where they were present a few thousand years ago. So that may be a good start.

Gene drives could also be viable in the future, where you could gene edit the genome of an invasive species to only produce a single sex of offspring and then release those animals en masse. It's a strategy they're attempting to use to wipe out disease-resistance mosquito populations.

Problem with that is that Tasmanian devils are endangered and are in decline, they couldn't just "reintroduce" them to the mainland.

[Golden Yak]

I've read that tasmanian devils have kept the feral cat and fox population in Tasmania low. There have been talks to reintroduce tazzie devils back to mainland Australia, where they were present a few thousand years ago. So that may be a good start.

Couldn't help but think of

[Triggered Fridgekin]

I wonder however if its possible to re-train those feral cats back to normal pets or they are to far gone.

To a certain extent. It depends mostly on the age and the degree of human interaction but in either case it requires a lot of patience. Kittens caught before the age of 6 weeks (depending on who you ask) can come back but if we're talking a six year old dumpster diva who is a true feral and not just a scared stray then it can take years of work and even then your mileage will vary when compared to normal cat behavior.

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Problem with that is that Tasmanian devils are endangered and are in decline, they couldn't just "reintroduce" them to the mainland.

I've read that there has been a breakthrough in regards to treating Devil facial tumors and their population in certain areas is on the rise. Still endangered though.

[Irian]

As much as I love cats, I don't hate this because its goal is to kill cats. I hate it because it will probably incidentally kill many pets, and likely not just cats. Capturing, spaying and releasing isn't really particularly high cost and gets the job done all the same, if not better because you can assure that it will hit the targeted population and will also not incidentally kill wildlife or house pets.

[Techno-Druid]

I've never heard of this airdropping sausages and suspect it may be make believe.

Something I had heard they were trialing was using a device that can tell if there's a cat walking by and when it does it sprays them with a poison. Then the cat later cleans itself, ingesting the poison on its coat and killing itself.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-...-lands/9269240



Problem with that is that Tasmanian devils are endangered and are in decline, they couldn't just "reintroduce" them to the mainland.

I'm not sure how that doesn't bolster justification for a species reintroduction. Establishing multiple healthy populations of any species is pretty important and I'm certain the process of reintroduction would be more intricate than just releasing some tazzies in the woods somewhere and leaving them be. A similar thing was done with tiger quolls, which are a cat-like marsupial that were extirpated from mainland Australia iirc.

I wonder though, could gene editing be used to create devils with an immunity to that facial tumor disease?

[Socialhealer]

This sounds like a terrible idea. What about other pets in the area? And what if a small child is outside playing and eats one? Will it poison them?

it says in the article it's not even lethal to foxes so almost certainly humans will be fine, except maybe some food poisoning depending how long thats been out there, then again don't eat food you find on the floor.

In addition to mammals, cats kill an estimated 377 million birds and 649 million reptiles every year in Australia. (In the United States, the numbers are even more striking: Scientists estimate that free-roaming cats kill 1.3 to 4 billion birds and 6.3 to 22.3 billion mammals every year.)

Still anyone got any better ideas to save millions of birds and over half a billion reptiles?

given enough time these feral cats will wipe out species.

[iindigo]

It's not the cats fault, it's ours, and a more humane method should be utilized. I mean honestly, this was the last paragraph in the article:

Long after midnight, as the truck turned back toward the farmhouses, and the men shot their fifth or sixth cat, Mark W. opened one up to find that it had been carrying five kittens that were close to term. Their skin was translucent and velvety, and when he took them out of the cat, they made their first noises.

“Five little killers,” he said, and, so they wouldn’t suffer alone in the cold night, he used a knife to cut their heads off.

Disgusting. There has to be a better way.

Psychopath-enabling stuff like this has no place in modern society. Yes the cats are a problem, but holy cow this is not the solution.

[Fargus]

Psychopath-enabling stuff like this has no place in modern society. Yes the cats are a problem, but holy cow this is not the solution.

Yet people can go to the local store and buy glue traps, which practically meshes an animal in superglue where it either starves to death, or dies from its numerous wounds from struggling (including bitten off limbs).

[Jagd]

Biggest problem in Australia with any form of feral cat control is the sheer size of the country vs the available manpower. You need to remember the landmass of Australia is almost the size of the USA and the entirety of western europe, yet has a total population barely bigger than Florida state, or 1/3rd the UK. Any form of strategy needs to be HIGHLY efficient on manpower. I would imagine any form of capture and desex scheme would prove to be impossible to keep ahead of. Most of the population control is already done via hunters as described in the NYT article.


Sources:
http://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topi...-size-compared
https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/mf/3101.0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._by_population
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fa...l,US/PST045218

[telygroar]

I've never seen a cat cut down a tree or divert a river. They decimate habitats but if they are removed they revover

just type "chainsaw cat" on googlz §

[Charge me Doctor]

Human overpopulation is a problem. How bout lethal pizza?

How do you think we have so many heart diseases?

[Dorthonion1]

This sounds like a terrible idea. What about other pets in the area? And what if a small child is outside playing and eats one? Will it poison them?

Cats are friend not food, sir

[d00mGuArD]

Then air drop in a wave of poisonous cats to poison the kangaroos who are trained to punch cats to death?

Brilliant
Make sure those poisonous cats will self destruct after poisoning the kangaroos!

[Soot]

I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures, but this sounds like one of those ideas that's destined to backfire. Do you think it's a good idea? Is there a better way?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/m...t-killing.html

Dumping poisoned food products, what could go wrong? Nothing, I tell you! NOTHING!

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How is it desperate? It just sounds like a plan to kill an animal that is destroying an ecosystem. Of course it can backfire. I'm not an ecologist so I don't think my opinion matters on whether or not it's a good idea.

The cane toad was also an attempt at pest control. It's why Australia has an extremely tight control on what gets into the country.
You don't need to be an ecologist to realize that dumping loads of poisoned meat is a bad idea, since there's more animals than cats out there.

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Psychopath-enabling stuff like this has no place in modern society. Yes the cats are a problem, but holy cow this is not the solution.

You must undstand that the wild cats are an extreme problem to the native species. They hunt EVERYTHING that isn't bigger than them. They can eradicate other species because cats are superb hunters. Not to mention the disease they can carry with them AND the danger they pose to house pets.
Would you rather the man had left them to die a slow death? There was no saving those kittens.

It's the only solution.

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This sounds like a terrible idea. What about other pets in the area? And what if a small child is outside playing and eats one? Will it poison them?

Doubt there's anyone living out there. At all. As I understand it, the areas were people live in Australia are quite limited. And you do live in the outback, you probably don't even have walking distance to your closest neighbour.

[RoKPaNda]

Man the last line of that article is fucked up. I always find it odd how the don't interfere with nature crowd is silent when interfering with nature will sate their bloodlust. I'm with the nature groups that think it's wrong to intervene. We should stay out of nature's way.

If cats can survive in the harsh landscape of Australia and do well there, good for them, leave 'em be.

You must undstand that the wild cats are an extreme problem to the native species. They hunt EVERYTHING that isn't bigger than them. They can eradicate other species because cats are superb hunters. Not to mention the disease they can carry with them AND the danger they pose to house pets.
Would you rather the man had left them to die a slow death? There was no saving those kittens.

It's not our place to correct that. They're there and they're thriving. Nature is cruel. Also total horseshit about not being able to save the kittens. From the sounds of it that man is enjoying his job a little too much.

[Vash The Stampede]

We should just rename Australia to Kitty Island and accept their cat overlords.