Thread: Cats?

Where I live we have lots of Tui, Morepork, Wood Pidgeon, Fantail and the odd waxeye (just found out their not native..) Mainly I think i'ts because we have native Forrest on the edge of our property (we are lucky). Lot's of well fed domestic cats too. Still get some introduced birds especially black birds.

Yep. But, imagine the F-up that will occur if we get rid of all the cats that are dining on rats, mice and birds in no particular order. If there are 6x the amount of rodents to birds - we have a serious problem and 1080 will not fix nuthin.

its a rare cat that will consistently take on big rats any cat is a potential killer including your big useless looking hairy persian.
in my experience cats find birds much more facinating than mice to the point of climbing trees to get at them nests and all.
if they run out of mice or the rodents become more clued up to the moggy bieng about then the cat hunting instincts aroused will take the path of least resistance.
keeping them well fed will curb them doing it to eat but it will not curb that killer instinct inherent in even your laziest lap moggy.
rats and mice have holes generally once down they are safe birds have no such luxury one of ours specialised in hedges and the sparrows blackbirds that live in them.
yes he started on rats and mice and every morning was a mose/rat massacre scene on the doorstep or front lawn but the rodents learnt and moved addresses.
his bent was blinding mice in one eye so he could show me how funny it was watching them run in circles or to make it easy for useless me to participate in the game one of the two
seeing what you thought was the most useless lap warming laziest uglist pumkin head exotic persien emerge from bush reserve at the back of of your house with a tui in its gob
gives you an idea that hunting killing is latent in them all.

It is a no win subject - just upsets people - what they don’t know wont upset them
Saw this on FB this morning - these guys know what they are about - cute we animals - they wouldn’t kill a native bird would they - just trained to kill rats
https://www.facebook.com/DanielRitch...type=3&theater

The native species we have left are the ones that have adapted the best to the preaditors we introduced and the habitat changes we have made e.g. Paradise Ducks are doing fine. There are no weka on the east coast whereas there are heaps on the west coast. East coast is a far more modified environment with far more introduced preaditors.

A cat may catch a few mice but thats largely irrelevant as they can breed faster than they get eaten. It's like trying to shoot rabbits to reduce numbers. Go to a farm with heaps and shoot 1k rabbits (which I have done). Go back the next week and you won't be able to tell the difference because they are breeding so fast they have replaced the 1k that got shot. They are only limited by food sources. If you wanted to control them you would have to kill the last one i.e. blanket the place with 1080 repeatadly (which is the standard approach with high rabbit numbers).

Originally Posted by MassiveAttack

The native species we have left are the ones that have adapted the best to the preaditors we introduced and the habitat changes we have made e.g. Paradise Ducks are doing fine. There are no weka on the east coast whereas there are heaps on the west coast. East coast is a far more modified environment with far more introduced preaditors.

A cat may catch a few mice but thats largely irrelevant as they can breed faster than they get eaten. It's like trying to shoot rabbits to reduce numbers. Go to a farm with heaps and shoot 1k rabbits (which I have done). Go back the next week and you won't be able to tell the difference because they are breeding so fast they have replaced the 1k that got shot. They are only limited by food sources. If you wanted to control them you would have to kill the last one i.e. blanket the place with 1080 repeatadly (which is the standard approach with high rabbit numbers).

hasnt worked so far massive hence them having to bait them first then poison but they still cant be sure of the kills because whats underground and those rabbits ability to brreed like well rabbits .
calesci didnt work for long because they pig headedly introduced it wrong.
the only sure way is a several front attack poison shooting dogging and burrow gassing/ destruction its not like we dont have the labour but the political will and finances is the problem.
i think they put the cart before the horse in reintroducing the birds back to reserves which they poisoned trapped whatever but obviously took no account of the killers on thier door step or whether some of these places are a dumping ground of cats for the callous bastards of this world.