Obviously the feral cat population in Australia originated from domestic
moggies gone wild. (There is the intriguing thesis that they spread WEST to
East originally, from Dutch ship-cats surviving ship-wrecks on the west
coast in the C18; Aboriginal people in the centre of Australia seem to have
been aware of 'pudji-katta' (the current Indigenous language term quoted in
Uluru NP fauna-lists) in the late C19, and were skilled at hunting them (the
trick is to run them down, they don't have much stamina, and soon just give
up and cower).
However I doubt whether domestic strays add to the population. I can't see
why, after two centuries of residence, the whole of Australia shouldn't be
populated at carrying capacity by ferals. Domestics strays trying to compete
with wild born and bred feral cats just wouldn't make it (same issue for
survival of escaped cage-birds).
John Leonard
On 7/21/06, inger vandyke <> wrote:
Hi Tony et al.
I am not an authority on this either but a couple of years ago in the
Red Centre I did a campervan trip for 7 days, during which time I
spotted over 12 wild cats. Every one of them looked like a version of
a domestic moggie to me but HUGE! They were hunting at night and
seemed to be very prolific in the Western MacDonnells. I had never
witnessed such a huge concentration of them.
I would fully agree with Tony in his comments. The damage these cats
must be doing out there must be irreparable.
Its a shame that tracking devices aren't more advanced so that
responsible cat owners could keep a real eye on their cat and where
it's going. The onus could then be thrown back to Councils who should
rule that any cat on the street without a tracker could be caught and
destroyed if unclaimed.
Cheers,
Inger
______________________________________________________________
From: "Tony Russell" <>
To: "'Andrew Thelander'"
<>,<>
Subject: RE: [Birding-Aus] Cat Control
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 10:28:21 +0930
>I certainly don't have any data on this, but it seems logical to
me that
>uncared for cats do go feral and breed up. These "new " ones must
then
>top up/add to the feral population.
>
>Tony,
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:
> On Behalf Of Andrew
Thelander
>Sent: Friday, July 21, 2006 10:15 AM
>To:
>Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] Cat Control
>
>
>
|
