Cat myths

Myth 1 - Cats are a threat to the natural Australian ecosystem.

There is absolutely no evidence in any study yet produced in Australia that cats are a threat to the natural Australian ecosystem.

Those few papers and studies which speculate that cats might be a threat to the Australian ecosystem present no evidence in support of this speculation.

Myth 2 - Cats have caused and are causing the extinction of numerous native Australian animals.

Several studies indicate that cats have caused local extinctions in some fragile and isolated island environments - often where they were deliberately introduced for the purpose of killing native animals or rabbits (Copley 1991, Jones 1977, Newsome 1991).

There is no evidence in any study yet produced in Australia that cats have caused the extinction of any mainland species of native animal or that they are more than a marginal threat to the survival of any mainland species of native animal.

Myth 3 - Feral cats eat native animals in preference to their traditional prey.

Virtually all studies of cat diet indicate that, where introduced prey are available, cats eat mainly rats, mice and rabbits (Cameron 1992, Catling 1988, Coman 1972, 1991, Johnson 1991, Jones and Coman 1980, Jones 1977, Jones 1992, Newsome and Coman 1989, Newsome, Newsome, Parer and Catling 1989 And 1991, Reark 1994, Seabrook 1991 ).

Myth 4 - Cats prey on rare and endangered species of native animals

Studies of cat diet indicate that cats are opportunistic feeders, preying on the commonest and most available species rather than rare or endangered species (Coman and Brunner 1972, Jones and Coman 1980).

Studies also indicate that they prefer a wide a range of different prey (Bayly 1978, Coman 1991, Copson 1991, Dowling, Seebeck and Lowe 1994, Seebeck, Greenwood and Ward 1991). They are therefore unlikely to prey on any one species to the point of endangerment or extinction.

Myth 5 - The Australian environment would be better off without cats.

Several studies indicate that cats play a crucial role in regulating rabbit populations (Newsome Parer and Catling 1989, Pech, Sinclair, Newsome and Catling 1992).

Cats are also widely accepted all over the world as vital in the regulation of rat and mouse populations. If not for their near extinction in 14th century Europe, they may well have been able to prevent the Black Death from killing a third of the human population of Europe (Buckingham, 1995).

Very little is understood about the interactions of cats, foxes, native predators, native prey and introduced prey, except that these interactions are extremely complex (AWAC NSW 1993, Copley 1991) and, in our ignorance, we meddle with them at our peril.

It may well have been better for many individual native animals who have been subjected to unnecessary predation if cats had never been introduced to Australia. But the global ecosystem is a system in constant flux, even without the influence of industrialised humans. It may not now possible to remove cats - or other introduced animals - from the Australian ecosystem without doing far more harm than good.

Myth 6 - Cats prey mainly on native birds

Most studies indicate that cats seldom eat birds (Jones and Coman 1980, Jones 1992).

A study of 513 threats to native birds indicated that cat predation was a factor in the threat to only three (Garnett 1992).

A NSW parks and wildlife study of 62 species of endangered mammals, birds and snakes makes no mention of any one of these species being endangered by predation by any introduced animal.

Myth 7 - Feral cat numbers are growing because feral populations are being joined by strays from the domestic population.

Cats are territorial animals and do not let new cats into their territories. Once established in a territory, a cat population stabilises, (C.A.T.S., 1995). Any new kittens born and any stray or dumped cats introduced to the territory would, therefore, simply fail to survive.

Feral cat numbers in Australia are almost certainly declining along with native animal populations as a result of the constant loss of habitat and livelihood for both native and introduced wild animals.

Myth 8 - Domestic cats (as well a feral cats) are also major killers of native wildlife.

Research indicates that nearly 50% of domestic cats do not hunt at all. Of those that do, nearly 40% catch rats and mice only. 24% catch introduced birds. Only 4% of domestic cats catch native birds. Stray cats mainly eat rats, mice and garbage. (Reark, 1994).

In Eltham Shire, where 80% of the human population are dog and cat owners, in 1991, less than half a per cent of injuries to wildlife were caused by cats (Shire of Eltham 1992).

Myth 9 - Cats came to Australia, along with most other introduced animals, with European settlement.

Fossil records, DNA analysis and distribution factors indicate that cats have been in Australia for 500-600 years. Asian cats were coming ashore from shipwrecks long before the European invasion. There is a "cat dreaming", and Aboriginals regard the cat as a traditional and significant food source. Some have the cat as their totem spirit (Wagner, 1995).

Myth 10 - To get rid of the feral cats, we have to kill them.

Cats are rapid and prolific breeders. Under normal circumstances the majority of feral cat young do not survive because there is not enough territory for them. However, if you kill off all the established cats in an area, in a very short time, fertile, healthy cats will fill every niche you have emptied.

Over long periods of "sustained control", these replacement cats are likely to be bigger, stronger, faster, smarter, more resistant to disease and better adapted to hunting the local wildlife than the previous generations. (Charles Darwin called this process "survival of the fittest".)

Therefore, if cats are a problem for native wildlife, sustained lethal control can only exacerbate the problem.

Additionally, sustained lethal control prevents nature from doing what nature does best, and absorbing the new species fully into the ecosystem.

The only measure for controlling any pest animal population which has any hope of being effective in the long term is fertility control.

Myth 11 - It is cruel to allow native animals to be subjected to predation by introduced animals.

Virtually every animal (and plant) species on Earth (including our own), left to nature, produces more young in one lifetime than are needed to replace either the parents or the other individuals of the parents' generation who do not successfully breed.

If all these young survived, overpopulation would occur, resulting in starvation, intra-species aggression and disease.

Predation is, without doubt, the least cruel of all nature's mechanisms for ensuring that not all these young survive.

Myth 12 - Even if cats are not by themselves a threat to any native animal species, once you add them in to all the other threats, they could be the last straw.

Once a population of animals is under threat from other factors, any predator, native or introduced, becomes a contributor to the threat. Exactly the same argument can be applied to native predators or, for that matter, death from old age.

In an environment where around 60% of native species are predators, if a species cannot cope with a predation , it is no longer a viable species. To make it viable again, the other threats, not the predators (native or introduced), must be removed.

Myth 13 - Even if we have no research suggesting that cats have caused the extinction of any mainland population of native, according to the precautionary principle, we should not wait for an extinction to occur before we act.

Facts The precautionary principle is, above all else, about exercising caution.

Given that research indicates that cat predation on rabbits is extremely important in ecological terms, simple caution dictates that their removal could be far more dangerous than their presence in the Australian environment.

Myth 14 - Cats carry diseases and parasites which are transferable to native animals, and humans.

There are very few diseases carried by cats, which are transferable to other animals but not already carried by other animals.

On the other hand, throughout history cats have been employed to control animals such as rats who do sometimes carry diseases which are very dangerous to humans.

Myth 15 - Competition with cats is driving native predators to extinction.

Human impacts are far and away the most significant reason for the decline of native predator populations - mainly habitat destruction.

Since cats prefer rabbits, they are rarely found in deep forest. Preserving old growth forest is the surest way of protecting native wildlife, both prey and predator, from cat predation and competition.

Questions

If feral and/or domestic cats were removed from the Australian environment, what would happen to:

Native species whose native predators have been reduced or become extinct, and who are now at least partially dependent on the cat for population regulation?

Native species whose populations have been unnaturally advantaged by white human settlement and who are therefore now at least partially dependent on the cat for population regulation?

Native species on whom cat predation is minimal but who are preyed on or in competition with other introduced animals, such as rabbits, rats and mice, on whom cats predate?

CATS - VILLAIN OR VICTIM, SOME THOUGHTS FOR CONSIDERATION

Cats are companion animals

They were originally welcomed into human society for the service they provide in keeping our homes and grain free of "vermin". But over the millennia, a deep bond has developed between human and cat.

Cats are important not only to our emotional, mental and physical good health, but also to our relationship with the wild. Cats provide a window of love, appreciation and respect into the mind of what is still essentially a wild animal. Because cats are low-maintenance compared to dogs, they are ideal companions for urban working humans.

Most people instinctively love cats for their soft fur, their stress-relieving purr, for the baby faces for which they have been selectively bred for thousands of years, and for the profound honour they bestow on us when they deign to love us.

A few people instinctively hate cats. One explanation for this is that their perfection as natural predators scares people. Another is that this hatred is a reaction to the feline combination of femininity and independence - a combination of which some women may be jealous and by which many men feel threatened.

It is also a combination which human society has traditionally persecuted among its own kind, often under the same banner of superstition and hysteria under which it has persecuted cats.

It was after one such pogrom against single independent women and cats, that the cat in Europe nearly became extinct. As a direct result of the absence of enough cats to keep the rat population healthy, the Black Death wiped out one third of the human population of Europe - 25 million people in five years - not to mention millions of rats. The plague was rapidly transmitted from the over-abundant population of starving and weakened rats to humans via the plague carrying rat flea. (see: Buckingham 1995)

It should be noted that the plague bacillus is present in Australia, and endemic in the Americas and Asia.

Cats are predators

It was their skill as predators which first brought them into our community and, since it was so useful to us, we have never tried to breed it out of them, as we have with most dogs. Like all predators, cats are essential to the overall well-being of their prey. Predators take the old, the sick, the weak, the injured, the excess young.

At face value this may seem cruel, but consider the alternatives: not only a much more painful and lingering death for the old, weak, sick or injured individual, but also, ultimately, the overpopulation of the species, resulting inevitably in famine and disease - far worse options than a quick death at the jaws of a predator. Only bored domestic cats "torture" their prey.

Cats are prolific breeders

In a seven year period, one unspayed female cat and her offspring will produce 430,700 cats.

Cats are therefore cheap, expendable commodities. It is estimated that 150,000 cats are killed in shelters in Australia in a single year. Many more are abandoned to starve or survive as best they can as strays. Many, many more endure lives of hidden cruelty, because they are expendable and easily "replaced".

The only solution which is either humane or effective for the hundreds of thousands of unwanted and undervalued cats who suffer and die in Australia every year is fertility control (see: C.A.T.S. 1995, UK AWAC 1982))

Cats are as much the victim of human folly as native animals

Cats are in Australia because humans brought them here - even the genuinely feral (which might be more accurately called "native") cats who are here because Asian fishermen invited them onto their ships to control "vermin". If their being here is a problem - which is by no means certain - humans must take absolute responsibility for it, irrespective of the economic cost. Control of cats, if it is ever necessary, must be by humane and non-lethal means.