Cats Down Under

Readers know that US Person is a "cat person":  he is the devoted father of his neutered Burmese.  But he is sympathetic to conservationists in Australia who face a huge feral cat problem. Cats kill an estimated 459 million mammals every year in Australia. The clever, resourceful little hunters are eating pocket-sized marsupials at an alarming rate.  An ecologist at Charles Darwin--yes, that guy--University told The NY Times that cats pose a catastrophic problem  because Australian "frana have not evolved to cope with cats."  Feral cats have been declared a "nationally significant pest" and has declared war on them more than once.

Even Australians who admire the predatory prowess of cats are coming to the conclusion that they need to be reduced by any humane means available.  Cats are too entrenched to be eradicated entirely.  There are two sides to the predator-prey relationship, so a partial solution may be to equip prey such as bandicoots, bilbies and bettongs with some survival skills besides trapping and shooting cats.  Most Australians support controlling feral cat populations, but lethal methods are still controvesial since cats enjoy a close relationship with man.

Bettongs died out on the mainland in the 20th century and now only live in predator-free, fenced reserves or on coastal islands.  Researchers see reserves as only a temporary measure, the goal being to establish a balance in the greater ecosystem.  Research has revealed that most of the killing is done by larger toms who are often serial killers.  Given this information, one approach is to subcutaneously  implant a toxin capsule that dissolves in the stomach of a killer cat.  Another is the traditional and less gruesome one of improving traps, but the best hunters are the most difficult to trap.  Cats are very reluctant to feed on human scraps that bait a trap, preferring their own fresh kills.  The Felixer is an AI-aided trap that senses the proximity of a feral cat and sprays it with a toxic gel that the fastidious animal will clean of fits fur by licking.  In one six week trial one Felixer appeared to kill thirty-three cats.  Two hundred have been deployed across the Outback.  

releasing a bilby

Dr. Katherine Moseby proposed an unusual idea. [photo credit NY Times]   She decided that since native fauna is naive when it comes to hunting cats, she would experiment with training prey to avoid their feline predators.  She put five feral cats into a fenced paddock with the bittongs and bilbies to see if they would learn.  After two years the prey species became more cautious than counterparts living in protected areas.  After five years the bettongs had larger heads and feet.  Apparently, selection is driving this development since cats are more likely to prey on smaller animals.  Dr. Moseby thinks reintroducing protected small marsupials to native quolls, a carnivorous marsupial, may help sharper their avoidance behavior against cats. Will these adaptive changes be enough to save the marsupials from eventual extinction?  No one knows at this point. No approach appears to be foolproof against the stealthy, intelligent and deadly Felis catus.