To put it impolitely, this might be the biggest load of crap this side of a dysentery epidemic:
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As far as I remember the research on cats with radio collars came from AWC (Australian Wildlife Conservancy)
Jill
Well written Andrew. On the topic of your Ragdoll – I had a cat, until I discovered Aboriginal relatives staying with us so liked the cat that they wanted to take kittens back to their outstations as pets. That cat killed only one bird that I know of -but it was a Forest Kingfisher, an uncommon sight in the middle of Darwin.
After the cat died I decided never to have another.
Denise Lawungkurr Goodfellow 1/7 Songlark Street, Bakewell, NT 0832 043 8650 835
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Dear Andrew, Heartfelt thanks for your excellent piece in ‘The Age’. Some time ago I was listening to either ‘Science Show’ or ‘Ockham’s Razor’, and heard a biologist or ecologist interviewed. He researches feral cats in the Kimberley or Pilbara, putting radio-collars on feral cats. One tom was living on a rocky ridge bordering a grassy plain. There was a grass-fire on the plain, and the cat came down from his ridge, and trekked several kilometres across the plain to the margin of the burnt area. This was good hunting for him because of all the refugee mammals and reptiles which had escaped the fire and moved to nearby unburnt country. He hunted here for a week or two and then trekked back to his ridge. I have not been able to follow up the reference but i think it is important information. Thank you again, Anthea Fleming
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Except that people, in general, don’t hate cows and sheep, but we get around their killing by calling their meat beef and lamb or mutton, to divorce it from the animal. I don’t eat cows or sheep. Paul Osborn
Good response, Andrew. Having said that, while I think it’s absurd that feral cats are only despised because they’re not native, I have noticed an attitude to ferals among some people that’s similar to racism.
They seem to have an excessive hatred for Mynas, etc, and cane toads are often subjected to all kinds of painful deaths. Perhaps it’s necessary to hate something in order to continue culling it, and perhaps Franklin has noticed this and got the cause and the effect the wrong way around.
Peter Shute
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Ah sorry, rather than being “deliberately misleading” that was just my error in skim reading the report, apologies. I believe the report as a whole supports what I said earlier, but I’m not going to re-read the whole thing.
Jeremy
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Nice and succint – thank you Henry!
I think a simple test may suffice?
“On the balance of probability do we believe that the Australian environment (regardless of the damage inflicted by other species including us) would be better of without them?”
As to whether eradication may ever be possible and should it be funded – well, never say never I reckon – but one can’t be optimistic. As I understand it, lack of funds killed CSIRO’s “daughterless carp” program at a promising point. Happy to be corrected on that though.
Maybe it’s up to us all to express an opinion in favour of continued science based effort at a sensible level.
Graeme
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The article in the age by Adrian Franklin is not untypical of the approach taken by some people in certain social science disciplines to issues grounded in natural science. Their view of society is a lens that they use to interpret phenomena.
In this case, opposition to non-native species is seen to be analogous to opposition to multiculturalism / immigration by different ethnic groups. As such feral animal control is equated to racism …
A point that Franklin conveniently overlooks is that the people who are racists are quite likely to own non-native pets, and indeed to own pets that are likely to prey on native species. I suspect they are also more likely to abandon or otherwise manage their pets in ways that they contribute to feral populations …
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The report Jeremy quoted from dates from 1996. It is referred to in Franklin’s 2006 book along with similar comments from the likes of Tim Flannery. If there is a more up to date summary of the state of the science, it would be good to post it here for all to read.
Franklin is an anthropologist/sociologist and I don’t believe his thesis is that you are a racist if you are worried about feral cats. On the last page of his book, he writes “the metaphor of nature has always been played dangerously in human politics, and never more so than when it is tied to vigorous forms of nationalism.” I think he would say that what is at stake in this area is the potential mis-application of public funds on a grand scale trying to eradicate a creature that is here to stay without any reasonable certainty that its eradication/control will achieve the desired goal. I think it’s a sensible point.
What we need to achieve first, however, is to get our politicians to the point where they are happy to spend any money at all on wildlife matters. Look how slow and skimpy they have been to fund efforts at saving the Tassie devil!! And some of us seem to think they’ll pay the bill for a cat eradication campaign across the whole continent?? Time for a reality check, folks.
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Just Europeans? : )
Sent by: birding-aus-bounces@lists.vicnet.net.au
Just to bring some perspective to the debate, whatever the impact, or lack
of it, from feral cats, it pales into insignificance alongside the impact of Europeans.
Paul Osborn
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Just to bring some perspective to the debate, whatever the impact, or lack of it, from feral cats, it pales into insignificance alongside the impact of Europeans.
Paul Osborn
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Yeah, he’s definitely wide of the mark – his conclusion is because there isn’t good evidence, therefore there isn’t a problem, but the lack of good evidence is due to a lack of studies, not due to studies that exonerate cats. As the expression goes – absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In this case we do know cats cause big problems in small and isolated environments, and among some specific prey. We just don’t whether cats cause a general problem outside of those specific areas, or how big a problem that is.
What’s even worse about the article though is the absurd suggestion that people think cats have a negative impact on the environment because they’re racists who dislike immigrants. That’s crap, especially since there are so many places around the world where cats been demonstrated to have significant negative impacts on the environment. Everybody concerned about the environment should worry about the impact of cats, and it’s clearly not racist to do so.
Jeremy
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That’s a pretty old report you’ve dug up there, Jeremy. Regardless, I think you’re letting this guy off lightly with ‘fallacy of argument’. The words ‘feral cat has been exonerated’ are a fib to aid a weak premise at best and, at worst, a deliberate misrepresentation of scientific literature (from a professor, no less!). You want people to pass judgement based on the current state of scientific research; if so, you have to agree that he’s wide of the mark.
This document, for example, tries to summarise the science:
http://secure.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/invasive/publications/pubs/impacts-feral-cats.pdf
From the executive summary;
“In Australia, in contrast to other parts of the world, feral cats are not recorded to have impacted on any species of reptiles, amphibians, fish or invertebrates”
But again I raise the issue of a fallacy of ignorance. Because there isn’t much evidence, it’s difficult to say that cats do or do not have an impact. We know in some specific cases an impact can be seen, and we know in some specific cases we weren’t able to find an impact. We don’t know what the general consequences are.
Jeremy
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I said there wasn’t good evidence in general, and then specifically said there were some individual exceptions. It’s easy to say in some specific circumstances cats are a problem, but it’s much more difficult to say that they are a problem everywhere, or even in the majority of places.
On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 2:46 PM, Chris Sandersonwrote:
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Hi all,
I disagree with the premise that science hasn’t proven the cat to be a problem. There are some good island ecology papers that directly implicate cats with extinctions (which the Age author casually dismisses), and of course the highly anecdotal story about the lighthouse keeper’s cat and the Stephens Island Wren in New Zealand (where “Tibbles” allegedly singlehandedly wiped the entire species off the face of the earth, though it turns out he had some help from feral cats). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephens_Island_Wren
Other than that direct evidence, there is a suite of exclusion experiments (such as island arks and predator free sanctuaries) where, in the absence of introduced carnivores, native animals have begun to thrive again. This in my mind constitutes evidence of an at least partially causal relationship between introduced carnivores and loss of species. You could also include the success of various baiting programs as evidence.
And then there is this: http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/feral-cats-wreak-havoc-in-raid-on-enclosed-refuge-for-endangered-bilbies/story-e6freoof-1226429359126. The population of Bilby in Currawinya NP massacred by cats.
Most damning though is a recent experiment run by the AWC in the Northern Territory: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/jury-is-in-on-feral-cats-caught-redpawed-in-rat-bloodbath-20121228-2bz4t.html. A simple experiment to be sure, but highly effective in proving the point.
Personally I think that qualifies as ample evidence that feral cats (and foxes) are very harmful to our native animals. Arguing the science doesn’t exist doesn’t cut it for me.
Regards, Chris
I think this article is falling for the fallacy of argument from ignorance. There haven’t been very good studies on the impact of feral cats on the mainland of Australia, so from the scientific evidence it’s difficult to claim that they don’t have an impact, or that they do have an impact.
I have heard a carnivore ecologist suggest that they could be doing good though, because in large parts of Australia all of the former main predators are extinct or functionally extinct (such as Tasmania), so animals like cats and foxes may have moved in to fill the niche, while animals threatened by cats and foxes mainly already went extinct in the second wave of human facilitated mass extinctions in Australia. There are some individual exceptions to this I believe, but I guess the case being made to me was that in general the impact of cats isn’t severe. I have my doubts about the case for cats though.
Anyway until some robust science is done that looks at more than just casualties (since predators are important part of ecosystems and everything dies, so the fact that predators eat particular animals doesn’t necessarily mean they’re doing damage), I think claims that cats are good, bad or neutral for the environment should be viewed with some caution.
Jeremy
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Agreed.
Peter Shute
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Adrian Franklin also develops this argument in his book, Animal Nation (UNSW Press, 2006) in which he cites others who have drawn this metaphorical parallel between attitudes to feral animals and human immigrants. He seems to like Tim Low’s book, The New Nature, saying “the implication from Tim Low is that if we let go of the idea of a proper, perfectible nature and concentrate on *possible* natures and how we can assist them into being, then all manner of beautiful, interesting and life-affirming things can happen that are truly Australian, reflecting our true history and natural history. This is the enigma of hybrid environments, hybrid lives and human-animal relations.” [p.235] Aside from the question whether automatic loathing of feral animals is a form of “eco-nationalism”, I assume Franklin thinks we can’t practically eradicate feral cats (look at how the Brits at an early stage poured money into eradicating Nth American stoats but failed) but that we can “assist into being” some kind of hybrid balance between the old and the new that doesn’t involve actual extinction. This may not be as silly as it sounds given recent publicity about how protecting dingos in some areas keeps foxes and cats down and allows small mammals to maintain numbers. Does Franklin have a point or should we just repeat the call made in 1996 by the WA Liberal MP, Richard Evans, who wanted all cats – feral or otherwise – eradicated from Australia by 2020? Good old King Canute??
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