Golden bandicoot News
- Thread starter vogelcommando
- Start date
Yes. The cat-lovers are a large part of the community and banning cats completely would be political suicide. However, there are some local councils that have laws prohibiting cats from being allowed out at night, or allowed to roam outside their yard.
But for the Golden Bandicoot domestic cats are not the problem, the feral cats are. Along with foxes, dingos and probably cane toads. And man, clearing habitat.
Hix
Is there any attempt to educate school kids as to the problem of cats pose to wildlife and the fact that keeping cats leads to the need to exterminate hundreds of feral cats? Maybe cats could be phased out over a generation or two. Also, is there any way of putting the cost of eradicating cats and putting up vermin proof fences on to cat owners?
Owned cats are becoming less and less of a problem. Increasingly, cat owners now have a legal obligation to retain their pets on their property and all owned cats must be registered. Most pet cats are now sterilised as well. As Hix points out the problem is feral cat populations that date back to the earliest days of European settlement. In fact they may pre-date European settlement, as there is one hypothesis that cats were first introduced by Asian traders, trading with Aboriginals in northern Australia. The Federal government are sponsoring a program to cull 2 million feral cats, and make a number of islands cat free. Most school children are very aware of the problem of feral cats, and there is little opposition to the cull program. Ironically most of the opposition to the cull program comes from overseas, led by the likes of Brigitte Bardot.
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