Once a nation of cat-lovers, attacks on other animals and recovery in local fauna is reshaping attitudes toward felines
, aiming to eliminate all possums, rats, stoats and ferrets by 2050. As attempts to wipe out those less sympathetic targets roll on, however, other animals are coming under the spotlight, including the family moggie. With more than 2 million feral cats, and about 1.4 million domestic ones across New Zealand, they are believed to be collectively responsible for huge numbers of attacks on native birdlife.
“I have owned cats most of my life, many of which simply wandered in and adopted us,” says Simon Damerell, a retiree in Auckland. Now, he and his partner have decided not to own a cat again – seeing cat-ownership as simply “incompatible with our strong interest in promoting birdlife into the city”.Others – like McConnell – favour a stronger approach, arguing that domestic cats should be kept inside and feral cats euthanised.
Aaron Lavack, of Wellington, lives near the city’s belt of forest. “It’s been a joy to see it slowly recolonised by native birds,” he says, especially the playful native kaka [parrots] that would have been a rarity a decade earlier. But the birds’ return also throws a spotlight on the cats that kill them. “Sadly, lately I’ve started to see kaka that have been killed by local cats; making the conflict between the two clearer,” Lavack said.
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