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‘Shocking’ is hardly a strong enough word

LUKE COSTIN REPORTS on the latest findings of the NSW Natural Resource Commission, in: Pet cats in crosshairs after invasive species review, The New Daily 9 Sept. 2024. The story ought to be a wakeup call to parliamentarians who have been wavering on taking action to control the roaming of domestic cats. Their kill rate is far higher than that of feral cats.  Read the full story. 

The background guff and report from the NSW Natural Resource Commission website is HERE.

Queanbeyan isn’t sitting on it’s hands
Queanbeyan releases new cat containment policy – Inside Local Government

And Landcare has got their back
Cat Containment — Queanbeyan Landcare

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Shocking numbers that should shock us into action
This story from the Nature Conservation Council (NCC), includes all the facts we need to advocate for proactive kindness towards our native animal cousins.

A LITTLE OVER A YEAR AGO Clancy Barnard circulated a media release: Low-hanging fruit: Pet cat containment a vital step to protect NSW’s wildlife, NCC, 11th September, 2023. It is one of the best summaries of the situation confronting wildlife in NSW. It also presents the NSW government with an easy-as-pie solution. Sherlock Holmes would say it was ‘Elementary my dear Watson’.

The Nature Conservation Council and the Invasive Species Council have today called on the NSW government to introduce clear laws to ensure pet cats are kept safe at home in order to save millions of native animals every year. The call comes in the wake of another 48 species added to the endangered species list and the release of an ambitious feral cat plan by the federal government.

Recently released research from the Australian National University has found that in the greater Sydney area alone there are approximately 1,086,676 pet cats. With around 71% of these being permitted to roam by their owners, this means that a shocking 66 million native animals are hunted and killed each year in Sydney. 

“If the NSW Government doesn’t act on this, a quarter of a billion native animals will be killed in Sydney over the next four years” said Dr Brad Smith, Acting NCC CEO.

“Hundreds of thousands of roaming pet cats are sending our suburbs silent but, unlike in almost every other state, NSW councils cannot implement basic cat curfew due to rules due to barriers in archaic state laws.

“Owning a pet cat should come with clear responsibilities to ensure your pet is not roaming around killing our native birds, mammals, reptiles and frogs,” said Dr Smith.

NSW’s current laws not only allow cats to spend their evenings hunting and killing native animals, they actually prevent local councils from mandating that cats are contained. This means communities are powerless to institute one of the easiest and highest impact policies to protect their local ecology. 

“Many of the actions required to protect our wildlife require complex legislative reforms and significant investment from the government. In contrast, by simply removing the barriers to local councils instituting cat containment we could save millions of native animals.

“We’re calling on NSW Environment Minister Penny Sharpe and Local Government Minister Ron Hoenig to sit down together and fix this.” 

“Amending the law in NSW to permit local councils to implement 24/7 cat containment rules is a simple step that would have profound benefits for our native wildlife,” said Jack Gough, Advocacy Manager at the Invasive Species Council.

“Councils across the state are crying out for this amendment so that they can protect their local bushland from the enormous impacts of roaming pet cats.”

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We need to outsmart the feral fox 

Foxes are often associated with raiding the farm chicken coop, but it’s more complex than that. As the numbers increase in urban areas and within island landscapes like Munibung Hill we need to be aware of their broader impact.

In: Outfoxed: the ‘smart’ ferals are adapting to Australian cities, and wreaking havoc in the bush, Daisy Dumas and Rafqa Touma, (The Guardian, 15 Jul 2024), report that:

The abundance of pets provides plenty of prey for foxes, one reason cities have become ideal homes for this introduced species.
  
“Foxes choose cities as habitats because they are ‘full of resources’,” says Professor Trish Fleming, a wildlife ecologist with Murdoch University, “From unfenced rubbish tips to street litter and open rubbish bins, and those resources are not seasonal”. Plus, they feast in our gardens.
 
This introduced species is not only a nuisance for humans.

 “In the bush, they are probably the second worst predator after feral cats, eating native animals and driving some species towards extinction,” says Dr John Martin from Ecosure Consultancy. “Mice, lizards, wallabies, kangaroos, turtles and birds are all at risk. Foxes also spread disease and weeds.”

 He says their interaction with native flora and fauna is complex. “But at its most simple, they are non-native species.”
 
“They’re a really gorgeous animal, and humans brought them here. They are absolutely doing what they have evolved to naturally do, which is to hunt animals. They’re a predator.”
 
With foxes now living on 80% of the Australian mainland, local councils are trying to control them. It’s a harder task in our cities, largely because baits, which are very effective for broad scale control, can poison pets.
 
“Fumigation, trapping, detector dogs, thermal scopes (which detect heat from a live animal) and firearms are all used in management plans,” says Gillian Basnett, the national feral cat and fox management coordinator with the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions. “Everyone can help solve the problem by throwing away less food and making sure that waste is safely secured,” she says.
 
Recording the foxes you see can also help. “It’s a fantastic experience to be able to see a fox like that,” Murdoch University’s Fleming says. “But they are terrible for our native fauna”.

   … From MMM Issue #46, Oct-Nov. 2024