Excellent overview, thanks for this and all your work! Is there a national plan for the control of feral cats? I understand there is one for feral pigs, which I believe is being driven by their potential & actual impacts on agriculture.
As a cat lover, I can also respect the responsibility which has to come in choosing a small tiger to live in the home, and as such none of the 12 cats which have kept me as their warm safe place to be fed, have ever been permitted to keep their fecundity. Whether tom or she, the tame domestic cat lives longer and stays healthier without their gonads. This is a fact, for many reasons. Toms don't wander off and frequently get abscess from fights with other cats for territory (or sex) and she cats can have 2 or 3 litters in a year, which increase in the first at about 4 kittens (which is possible within 6 months of their own birth) and litters tend to increase in number with each queening, and can reach numbers of kittens like 19 (a known maximum). I hold people and their failure to contain and to desex their feline responsibilities as the cause, and IMO it is an unfortunate fact that it is socially unacceptable to desex or to cull them. Which would not solve the problem now that the ungelded horse, so to speak, has got out the gate and is now in the next state. PAPP, retailed with the trade name "Curiosity" to those licensed by varying state regulations and within certain standards to do so. 1080 in Victoria is not permitted for use on free range cats, and PAPP is presented as a little less inhumane than 1080, but nothing on Earth as sentient as a mosquito has a natural death wish, so culling is always at some point too cruel to accept upon yourself or a friend, and doubt captive kill and use of barbitturate "green sleep" has the capacity for the reduction in population of 20 million free range moggies by a half a dozen rangers. Incentive for desexing could be provided by government with fiscal support, and cats are fine kept inside a house or at least within the same property and fenced land, provided they have a place to climb, the attention of their human companions, and a few things to play with. A bored animal of any species will lose the plot or start to wish they were somewhere else, and cats naturally sleep at least 2/3 of a day, on and off, with this time increasing with their age. Kittens are at their most active stage, when a few months old, but still sleep 12 in 24. All cats can be desexed at 6 months to 1 year, and the sooner done the safer and more likely to be at home at home. It might have been a better choice too, NOT to kill off the Dingo, because as top predator it may have controlled both the fox and the cat.
Excellent overview, thanks for this and all your work! Is there a national plan for the control of feral cats? I understand there is one for feral pigs, which I believe is being driven by their potential & actual impacts on agriculture.
As a cat lover, I can also respect the responsibility which has to come in choosing a small tiger to live in the home, and as such none of the 12 cats which have kept me as their warm safe place to be fed, have ever been permitted to keep their fecundity. Whether tom or she, the tame domestic cat lives longer and stays healthier without their gonads. This is a fact, for many reasons. Toms don't wander off and frequently get abscess from fights with other cats for territory (or sex) and she cats can have 2 or 3 litters in a year, which increase in the first at about 4 kittens (which is possible within 6 months of their own birth) and litters tend to increase in number with each queening, and can reach numbers of kittens like 19 (a known maximum).
I hold people and their failure to contain and to desex their feline responsibilities as the cause, and IMO it is an unfortunate fact that it is socially unacceptable to desex or to cull them. Which would not solve the problem now that the ungelded horse, so to speak, has got out the gate and is now in the next state. PAPP, retailed with the trade name "Curiosity" to those licensed by varying state regulations and within certain standards to do so. 1080 in Victoria is not permitted for use on free range cats, and PAPP is presented as a little less inhumane than 1080, but nothing on Earth as sentient as a mosquito has a natural death wish, so culling is always at some point too cruel to accept upon yourself or a friend, and doubt captive kill and use of barbitturate "green sleep" has the capacity for the reduction in population of 20 million free range moggies by a half a dozen rangers.
Incentive for desexing could be provided by government with fiscal support, and cats are fine kept inside a house or at least within the same property and fenced land, provided they have a place to climb, the attention of their human companions, and a few things to play with. A bored animal of any species will lose the plot or start to wish they were somewhere else, and cats naturally sleep at least 2/3 of a day, on and off, with this time increasing with their age. Kittens are at their most active stage, when a few months old, but still sleep 12 in 24. All cats can be desexed at 6 months to 1 year, and the sooner done the safer and more likely to be at home at home.
It might have been a better choice too, NOT to kill off the Dingo, because as top predator it may have controlled both the fox and the cat.
BRAVO!!!! ENCORE!!!!