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Can
I Stop My Cat Hunting?
The
short answer to this question is No.
The domestic cat is a carnivore and like all members of this family is
an aggressive and efficient hunter. It doesn't matter whether the cat
is owned, unowned or feral it is more than capable of attacking and killing
our native wildlife. Even a cat that has been purchased from a breeder
and has never been trained to hunt by its mother has natural predatory
ability.
One must remember that even a bite from a cat will normally kill wildlife
through shock or infection. What we can do is try and reduce the threat
by controlling the overall cat population. As responsible pet owners we
can help by:
- Confining
our cats
One
of the biggest myths is that our owned cat population does not hunt
because we meet their food requirements. Research suggests that an owned
cat will kill approximately 32 wildlife per year regardless of how much
food is supplied. By confining our cats we are helping to separate the
owned and unowned cat populations which helps to reduce unwanted breeding.
By confining your cat at night you are helping to protect our native
wildlife because many of our native animals are in fact nocturnal.
- Having
them desexed unless they are going to be used for breeding purposes
A female cat is capable of producing, on average,
a litter of four per year for seven years. When you consider that each
female only needs to reproduce two kittens in her lifetime to keep the
cat population at its present level, you start to understand the enormity
of the problem. Ask your teachers if you can work through the activities
in Unit 4B of the Teachers Manual. It asks you to try and calculate
the number of cats one female would be responsible for in her lifetime
if she had two males and two female kittens each year for seven years.
Keep in mind that you would need to include the kittens produced by
her children, their children and so on. It is a frightening figure,
particularly if you consider that most of these would belong to our
unowned population and be killing approximately 5 animals per week each
to subsidize their food intake from our rubbish and handouts.
- Ensuring
that they are registered with the local council and microchipped
We need to isolate our owned cat population from
the unowned population. As we have already discussed, desexing and confinement
are not controlling the unowned population. This means that our unowned
population is increasing at an alarming rate. It is a problem being
faced all over the State form the city centre to our semi rural areas.
Our Animal Control Officers are fighting a huge battle and they need
our help.
By ensuring that your cat is confined, registered and wearing its tag,
you will be helping to identify our unowned population. By reducing
this population we will be helping to protect our native wildlife.
Feral
cats, which have no contact with humans,
have to be self-reliant in regard to food supply. They will kill ten animals
per week simply to survive. Our native animals have evolved within the
Australian environment. When the cat was introduced it did not have a
natural predator therefore adapted to Australian conditions and its numbers
increased very quickly. There are a number of programs in place, which
help to reduce their numbers.
The best way to help is to look after our owned population and make sure
it doesn't mix with the feral or unowned population.
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