Paddy Gower's Issue With Feral Cats

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#3101825 10-Jul-2023 09:47

neb:
Wombat1:

Its not right allowing a cat to roam into other peoples yards.

Depends on the cat and the people. We live in a quiet cul-de-sac off a larger cul-de-sac where everyone knows everyone else, and their cats and dogs. People feed each other's cats when they're away, the cats visit each other, and in the afternoons they congregate on the warmest driveway to exchange top-secret intelligence or whatever it is cats do when they get together. No-one minds, in fact it's nice to have visitors from time to time.

Do they go into each others houses and pee up the walls in cupboards etc? I guess thats not happening. Because even I as a cat owner do not take calmly to that.

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#3101828 10-Jul-2023 09:57

neb:
rugrat:

I have a few cats visit my property. I’m glad they do. They looked well kept, so would guess they’re pets.

I have a friend who lives alone who gets regular visits from a neighbour's cat, he begs for tummy rubs, goes to sleep on the couch next to her for awhile, and then leaves again. She's never complained about his presence. It really varies an awful lot from person to person.

Our old next door neighbour used to have a number of cats.
Two in particular used to come over and make themselves at home. We loved them like they were our own. They even slept on our bed occasionally.
They were well fed (not by us) and well looked after - obviously neutered and very much house cats.

We didn't have a problem with them roaming, but we also never saw evidence of them going after local wildlife. They were too lazy and well fed for that. And their territory was obviously fairly small, too. They didn;t roam much past those two houses in particular.

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#3101880 10-Jul-2023 10:26

We recently got two kittens and have confined them to the house and an extensive catio - an area of about 60m2 enclosing our outdoor living area. There's a fair bit of shrubbery that they like to play in.
A couple of interesting observations after having roaming cats previously:
- If they can't get birds and mice, then they will find something to hunt. We get a lot of weta and stick insect presents, and a few niche bugs that we never knew we had.
- Having another cat to play with seems to be more significant in determining their happiness than whether they can roam or what they have in their space

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#3102039 10-Jul-2023 11:30

SirHumphreyAppleby:

1) Dogs bite.
2) Dogs poop all over the place. Cats, unless they are sick, are generally very clean animals.
3) Dogs are subject to rules that cats aren't.

I'd ban dogs in an instant, but I'm not giving up my cat.

Cats bite too. A lot more people (specially kids) are probably bitten by cats than by dogs. But cat bites usually cause only trivial injuries so they are tolerated (although a kid in my class at primary school lost an eye to a cat).

If a dog bites you like he means it, you'll be injured. If cats were the size of medium or large dogs, they would be serious problem/hazard.

I'm happy for dogs to be controlled by tight laws. Although, I think there should be an exception on biting/aggression if someone breaks into the dog's house and/or assault the dog's family.

Cat's should be required to stay off other people's property. Have as many cats as you like. Just confine them to your property or on a harness and lead in public spaces (like dogs).

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#3102331 10-Jul-2023 17:29

Handsomedan:
neb: I have a friend who lives alone who gets regular visits from a neighbour's cat, he begs for tummy rubs, goes to sleep on the couch next to her for awhile, and then leaves again. She's never complained about his presence. It really varies an awful lot from person to person.

Our old next door neighbour used to have a number of cats.
Two in particular used to come over and make themselves at home. We loved them like they were our own. They even slept on our bed occasionally.
They were well fed (not by us) and well looked after - obviously neutered and very much house cats.

We didn't have a problem with them roaming, but we also never saw evidence of them going after local wildlife. They were too lazy and well fed for that. And their territory was obviously fairly small, too. They didn;t roam much past those two houses in particular.

The cat I mentioned is like that too, he's desexed, chipped, and has a collar with a bell on it to warn wildlife of his approach. That one's entirely unnecessary, he's never shown the slightest interest in any of the birds on her property (there are bird feeders and a birdbath to encourage visitors, so there's frequently birds there).

The owners have two (very) young children, one of whom calls the cat her little brother and hugs him, and his visits seem to coincide with their peak activity times, so it looks like he's just popping next door for an hour or two to escape the pandemonium

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#3102333 10-Jul-2023 17:34

Gower's hit piece came up again during an offline discussion, specifically the case of cats slaughtering skinks. I mentioned that this place is overrun with skinks, during the summer every time you step outside you'll see tails vanishing in all directions, and it's been like that for as long as we've been here. All of the cats here seem to have missed the memo that they're supposed to be killing these things en masse.

The more interesting point though is that 100% of them are non-native Australian rainbow skinks. There are zero native skinks here not because of cats but because they've been displaced by an invasive introduced species. Perhaps Gower would like to comment on whether we should be encouraging the cats to hunt this invasive species, and if so how we're supposed to get them to do it given that they've shown no inclination to do so to date.

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#3102356 10-Jul-2023 19:22

MikeAqua:

If cats were the size of medium or large dogs, they would be serious problem/hazard.

Cats are the size of medium and large dogs. They are called cheetahs, panthers, leopards. I saw a doco about a tiger man whose children slept with two cat plus size tiger cubs. Don't know if they ever ate the kids. That wasn't mentioned.

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#3102790 11-Jul-2023 16:06

Rikkitic:

Cats are the size of medium and large dogs. They are called cheetahs, panthers, leopards. I saw a doco about a tiger man whose children slept with two cat plus size tiger cubs. Don't know if they ever ate the kids. That wasn't mentioned.

That's not the sort of cat being discussed here.

Those are dangerous animals, in different Genera and banned as pets (in NZ).

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#3102924 11-Jul-2023 20:52

neb: Gower's hit piece came up again during an offline discussion,

Another thing that came up during the discussion, apparently it showed trapped ferals as wild animals hissing and thrashing around in cages. Did it also show the more usual behaviour of ferals when they're trapped, or was it only the wild-animal stuff?

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#3103048 12-Jul-2023 09:35

neb:
neb: Gower's hit piece came up again during an offline discussion,
Another thing that came up during the discussion, apparently it showed trapped ferals as wild animals hissing and thrashing around in cages. Did it also show the more usual behaviour of ferals when they're trapped, or was it only the wild-animal stuff?

Just a thought experiment though - if a cat is out in the bush doing cat things such as catching birds, lizards, etc., should it be treated any differently whether it has a chip or a collar or not?

Would it be any different if it were a domestic dog killing kiwi, an issue we have up this way? A dog doesn't get let off the hook with a shrug and "oh well, it is someone's pet, it's all right then."

I really like cats, and have grown up with them. But if they're out in the bush ravaging the wildlife, then they're a pest.

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#3103148 12-Jul-2023 13:06

Gurezaemon:

Just a thought experiment though - if a cat is out in the bush doing cat things such as catching birds, lizards, etc., should it be treated any differently whether it has a chip or a collar or not?

Would it be any different if it were a domestic dog killing kiwi, an issue we have up this way? A dog doesn't get let off the hook with a shrug and "oh well, it is someone's pet, it's all right then."

I really like cats, and have grown up with them. But if they're out in the bush ravaging the wildlife, then they're a pest.

That sums up the concern that I think many cat lovers have. That the distinction between feral and domestic will be blurred or essentially eliminated and all cats will be regarded as pests.

A pet cat should absolutely be treated differently to a feral. However, that doesn't mean it should be consequence free. Owners could be fined, there could be "3 strike" system or similar.

But as general rule a pet cat should absolutely not be shot onsite as is often the case with ferals.

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#3103232 12-Jul-2023 14:56

I would support trapping/removal of ferals and mandatory de-sexing and chipping of domestics, that seems to be pretty much a no-brainer. Every domestic I know of is de-sexed and more recently chipped before they're adopted out so the latter at least isn't a big deal.

However than you run into another issue which I get the feeling Gower would have conveniently avoided: Pretty much all cats that people own are recovered ferals/strays, apart from the odd snob who insists on having a tenth-generation inbred as a pet. So cat owners are removing huge numbers of ferals from the wild (and getting them de-sexed and chipped, see above). Also, many people care for semi-ferals, so non-pets that turn up every day for food and possibly a scratch under the chin before disappearing again. They're not pets, but given that they get fed every day they're probably not bothering to hunt much either.

So it's really not black-and-white. Even something like "remove all ferals" would need to be investigated first to see what happens to the rat and other pest population in an area when all of their natural predators are removed. I know that in this area at least with all the non-hunting cats there's a serious rat problem that I don't remember ten-odd years ago when previous/younger cats would regularly turn up with dead rats. This may be affecting the quails that nest down in the bush here, once they're hatched they're fine (the cats pretty much ignore them), but some years there are no young which would imply that rats or other predators are getting the eggs before they can hatch.

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#3103247 12-Jul-2023 15:25

neb: I would support trapping/removal of ferals and mandatory de-sexing and chipping of domestics, that seems to be pretty much a no-brainer. Every domestic I know of is de-sexed and more recently chipped before they're adopted out so the latter at least isn't a big deal.

However than you run into another issue which I get the feeling Gower would have conveniently avoided: Pretty much all cats that people own are recovered ferals/strays, apart from the odd snob who insists on having a tenth-generation inbred as a pet. So cat owners are removing huge numbers of ferals from the wild (and getting them de-sexed and chipped, see above). Also, many people care for semi-ferals, so non-pets that turn up every day for food and possibly a scratch under the chin before disappearing again. They're not pets, but given that they get fed every day they're probably not bothering to hunt much either.

So it's really not black-and-white. Even something like "remove all ferals" would need to be investigated first to see what happens to the rat and other pest population in an area when all of their natural predators are removed. I know that in this area at least with all the non-hunting cats there's a serious rat problem that I don't remember ten-odd years ago when previous/younger cats would regularly turn up with dead rats. This may be affecting the quails that nest down in the bush here, once they're hatched they're fine (the cats pretty much ignore them), but some years there are no young which would imply that rats or other predators are getting the eggs before they can hatch.

Are you sure that's right?

I don't have info on it, but I would have thought most domestic moggies are the offspring of other domestic moggies - not recovered ferals?

I'd also make a distinction between feral and stray (a stray is often an abandoned pet, so can have very different demeanor to a feral cat and is far more likely to be able to be homed with people). However, that raises the question of where you make the distinction between stray and feral (togs, togs, togs, undies).

100% all pet cats should be desexed and microchipped. I wouldn't be against registration like dogs either.

Also agree that it's not as black and white as either side of the debate would have us believe.

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#3103256 12-Jul-2023 15:47

Paul1977:
I don't have info on it, but I would have thought most domestic moggies are the offspring of other domestic moggies - not recovered ferals?

[...]

100% all pet cats should be desexed and microchipped. I wouldn't be against registration like dogs either.

Given that most domestics, or let's say urban domestics, farm cats may be left intact, are de-sexed, unless there's some sort of divine intervention going on (and I'm sure many cats think they're God's gift but I can't see Jesus-cat happening) I don't think there'll be many that are offspring of existing pets. A number are re-homed domestics where the owners are no longer able to care for them for various reasons, but a great many are strays/ferals adopted into homes. All of the cats I know of came from shelters, not the offspring of someone's existing cat. There was one case where this was almost the case, a feral had given birth under a friend's house, she collected the kittens and mother and had the mother de-sexed and the kittens adopted out, but that was a post-facto domestic cat.

AFAIK any cat that's chipped is registered, the owner is recorded so that they can be contacted if the cat is found somewhere.

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#3103307 12-Jul-2023 16:12

neb: Given that most domestics, or let's say urban domestics, farm cats may be left intact, are de-sexed, unless there's some sort of divine intervention going on (and I'm sure many cats think they're God's gift but I can't see Jesus-cat happening) I don't think there'll be many that are offspring of existing pets. A number are re-homed domestics where the owners are no longer able to care for them for various reasons, but a great many are strays/ferals adopted into homes. All of the cats I know of came from shelters, not the offspring of someone's existing cat. There was one case where this was almost the case, a feral had given birth under a friend's house, she collected the kittens and mother and had the mother de-sexed and the kittens adopted out, but that was a post-facto domestic cat.

AFAIK any cat that's chipped is registered, the owner is recorded so that they can be contacted if the cat is found somewhere.

Problem with microchip alone is it requires someone to scan it to even know it's there. I think should be registered with council like you do with dogs, and get a tag to attach to collar showing it's registered (ideally with owners contact details as well). Microchip should still be compulsory, but also considered backup.

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