Hi Michael,
I believe there is no support for the hypothesis that cats were established in
Australia prior to European settlement. There's been a paper or two on this
from a few years back but I'll have to dig it/them out when I get back to the
office. From memory the evidence was based on time frames of invasion, and old
reports, ship records, etc. There may have been something genetic in there too,
but I can't really remember. I do remember being satisfied that the
researcher(s) had been thorough, and they convinced me.
It's a bit of a longstanding myth, and I certainly believed it based on the
appearances of some cats I'd seen in N. Aust. If you or anyone else on the list
has recent papers supporting the alternative hypothesis, of multiple
introductions including prior to European settlement, I'd love to see them,
because it's something I like to keep up with.
And without really wanting to cause a stir, I think it's a bit like the myth of
the large outback moggie, fed a high-protein diet (as opposed to?). My former
boss did some work on cats and from memory the average size was under 4 kg (n =
a 100 or so from memory). There are large Felis catus (to avoid the term "big
cats") out there, but I've seen hundreds of cats that I would put in the 2 - 4
kg guesstimate and about three that were big, maybe > 5 kg.
Again, I'll dig out the figures when I get back to the office.
Regards,
Eric
> On 3 Mar 2015, at 7:19 pm, "Michael Hunter" <> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi All.
>
> Cats have been a major issue for Australian Wildlife for centuries, and
> they have modified the distribution and survival of birds and animals since
> first introduced, from Indonesia by the Makassar's and later by Europeans.
> Apparently the Northwest half of Oz has genetically Indonesian type cats, the
> Southeast are European, for what that is worth.
>
> Controlling them will take a lot of research and labour, but once
> effective control methods are invented, distributing those controls would be
> worthwhile. It cost $25 million to control rabbits on Macquarie Island, what
> price Night Parrot ad other ground or termite mound nesters and what are left
> of our small mammals
>
> The novel spray-on poison for fastidious felines noted by Charles in a
> recent post is very interesting. Just how you would get the pussies to pass
> the spraying machine is another matter.
>
> I imagine that pheromones, odours derived from mating female cats, could
> be isolated, concentrated and spread around to attract males from far and
> wide, and possibly territorial females, would be effective.
>
> We had a cat problem which was solved by trapping in a possum trap
> baited with “Snappy Tom” canned cat food, and the miscreants humanely and
> painlessly disposed of via the local vet. Feral cats are said to be extremely
> indisposed to entering metal traps. Research into overcoming that problem
> (larger traps sprayed with pheromones and completely devoid of human odour)
> should work at least some of the time.
>
> How about Feline Distemper? Hunting dogs in restricted areas?
>
> Research into the territorial areas of feral cats is a must, maybe it has
> already been done.
>
> Some of you guys with a lot more time than me might surf the net for
> answers?
>
> Cheers
>
> Michael
>
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