Hi – There has been impressive research tracking the History of Cats in Australia by Ian Abbott, which involved searching 100s of historical documents such as explorers reports:
See here: http://www.dec.wa.gov.au/images/stories/nature/science/cswa/articles/23.pdf
“The spread of the cat, Felis catus, in Australia: re-examination of the current conceptual model with additional information”
This paper updates the 2002 paper in Wildlife Research below, that I have’nt looked at:
Abbott, I. (2002) Origin and spread of the cat, Felis catus, on mainland Australia, with a discussion of the magnitude of its early impact on native fauna. Wildlife Research 29, 51–74.
Its probably impossible to totally discount cat arrival by Macassans [dutch, egyptians?], but the data presented which suggests much later arrival is quite strong (in my opinion).
Colin
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