Transcript of Module 15 – Feral Cats

Okay. So, how did cats get to Australia?

Cats first arrived obviously with the first Europeans. So, on the first ships that came to Australia, from when the First Fleet arrived and onwards there were definitely domestic cats (1) in Australia, and it’s even possible that the earlier Dutch ship wrecks (2) around Australia released domestic cats onto the continent.

So, why were they on ships in the first place, though?

Cats were on ships, as they had been used elsewhere for millennia (3), for pest control (4), right. They had been there in order to keep rats (5), mice (6), and even cockroaches (7) at bay, to try and control those pest species (8), to control their numbers.

So, once the First Fleet arrived in Australia, these cats were brought ashore (9) and allowed to sort of roam freely (10) in the hopes of controlling pests around the early colony (11). So, these free-roaming domestic cats, obviously, escaped or just simply wandered off (12) into the bush (13), but they were also intentionally (14) released around farmland (15) and homesteads (16) in order to control rats and mice and rabbits (17) as well. And rabbits are another problem pest (18) in Australia that had also been released at about the same time as a source of food (19) that people could hunt (20).

So, historical records date the introduction of cats to Australia to around 1804, and that the first cats became feral (21) around Sydney by about 1820. And by the early 1900s, concern was expressed at the pervasiveness (22) of the cat problem (23). So, they were already a cat problem by the early 1900s.

So, cats became feral and they lived in the bush in Australia, but why is that a problem? You know, why are cats… why are cute, cuddly (24) nice little cats a problem in Australia?

So, terrestrially speaking (25), that means in terms of talking about the land as opposed to the ocean, cats as a group, a group of mammals (26), are some of the most successful predators (27) to currently be inhabiting any parts of the world, so, the world’s environments and habitats, cats are an amazing predator.

They are killing machines (28). In whichever environment you find them, they are stealthy (29) assassins (30), stealthy killing machines, and despite being relatively newcomers (31) to Australia, they are as successful here as anywhere else in the world, potentially even more so, because so many of the animals in Australia are naive (32) to cats, they do not understand that cats pose a threat (33), right, because they haven’t evolved (34) with cats in the local environment.

So, cats also have very few predators, namely dingoes (35) and wedge-tailed eagles (36), Australia’s largest eagle, and dingoes are a native dog that we have here in Australia. So, where these native Aussies don’t live, the dingoes and the wedge-tailed eagles, cats reign supreme (37) as the local apex predator (38), meaning the predator at the top of the food chain (39). They don’t have to fear anyone eating them and they can pretty much eat anything else.

Feral cats also have a vicious (40) and voracious (41) appetite (42). They will eat pretty much anything that lands on their plate (43), anything that walks in front of them, right, anything that they come across (44).

Thus, they are very bad news for any ground-nesting (45) birds, any lizards, small mammals, frogs, insects that also live on the ground, and they have likely underpinned (46), that is they have caused, the population collapse (47) and extinction (48) of many Australian native animals, which is quite tragic (49). So, they are currently thought to threaten (50) the existence of at least 35 birds, 36 mammals, 7 reptiles, and 3 amphibians. Really, really tragic.

So, today there are estimated to be about 3.3 million pet cats in Australia, that is domestic cats, living in houses, and they’re found in about 29% of Aussie homes. In comparison, so keep that number in mind, 3.3 million pets, there is between 18 and 23 million feral cats living, prowling, stealthily (51) moving about all corners of the Australian continent except tropical rainforest (52). So, there’s almost one cat… there’s potentially one cat per person roaming around free in Australia killing native animals.

So, what does this mean? Well, greater than 18 million cats need to eat a lot of food and that means 7 million native animals a day, to be precise, which equates to a staggering 27 billion animals per year that these cats eat in Australia. So, obviously, it is a heavy toll (53) on the Australian environment, well, and the animals.

Besides the obvious threat to native wildlife that this ferocious apex predator poses, they also pose a significant threat (54) to your average household moggy (55), your average household cat, as they can transmit (56) diseases (57), they can fight and injure (58) your cats as well. So, they’re a big, big, big problem.

This is why many Aussies, including your average Joe to your hunters as well as your conservationists (59) and environmentalists (60) have declared war on the feral cat and want to see them eradicated (61) from the wild.

So, though, you may compare them to your average domestic cat, they are completely different, they are a completely different beast (62). They are vicious wild animals that pose a threat to the existence of numerous native species.

If you own a cat in Australia, this is why it’s so important to keep them inside at all times so as to keep them away from other feral cats or people’s pet cats next door and also to prevent them running away, getting injured, and killing native animals too, most importantly.