One control method rarely makes much difference to the target population.
The feral cat population will not be reduced without multiple control
mechanisms; shooting, trapping, baiting, exclusion fences, biological agents,
competition from other predators, predation by higher order predators,
eliminating sources of recruitment to the population, etc.
Sterilisation could be another method but only if it could achieved through a
biological agent (STD) that would spread through a local population.
Cats have overlapping ranges so sterilising and releasing one or two will just
mean that the remainder will have greater breeding success.
Shark Bay is a great example of how difficult it is to eradicate cats. One
misguided person with a couple of morggies could undo all of that work.
Cheers
David
Sent from my iPhone
> On 17 Mar 2015, at 13:07, "Philip Veerman" <> wrote:
>
> This system can work best with animals that have stable populations in which
> territories are defended and for example one male controls all the females
> and prevents them mating with other females and especially if all the mating
> happens at one specific time of year. In such a case it can help to
> sterilise that male. If that doesn't happen then you would need to sterilise
> all or most of them. But do cats live in such systems..... I doubt it.
> Sterilising one male cat in a population is pretty useless unless he is the
> only one that all the girls desire. Sterilising all the females would be
> great if we can find a way to do it.
>
> Philip
>
>
> -----Original Message-----From: Birding-Aus
> On Behalf Of Bill Stent
> Sent: Tuesday, 17 March 2015 12:38 PM
> To: Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] A different way
> for feral cats ???????
>
>
> My understand was that sterilising a cat and releasing it (or better still,
> sterilising it with some sort of dart) is much more efficient in medium to
> long term population control than simply shooting it dead.
>
> If you shoot it, another cat takes its place, with an overall effect on the
> population of zero (that is, a total waste of time and effort).
>
> But if you sterilise it and relese it, the cat continues defending its
> territory and keeping others at bay for some years. This would result in a
> much more effective population crash, I would think.
>
> The more scientific or research-based contributors might like to comment
> please.
>
> Bill
>
>
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