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Australia Could Bring In Nighttime Curfew For Cats To Stop Feral Feline Problem

Australia Could Bring In Nighttime Curfew For Cats To Stop Feral Feline Problem

Feral cats kill more than three billion native animals every year - that's a kill rate of more than 1,100 animals per cat

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie

While dogs are often thought of as faithful companions, cats notoriously recognise no master - only someone who serves them food.

But they could soon have their nighttime freedoms stripped in Australia, with a feral cat problem killing millions of animals and seeing feline populations explode across the country.

A parliamentary inquiry is looking into ways to limit both those issues and a nighttime curfew for domestic cats has been floated.

While the idea of ensuring Mittens doesn't somehow break out while you're asleep is absurd (again, because cats tend to do whatever they want), there have been several local areas in Australia which have brought in cat control measures.

Chriss Pagani (Flickr)

Inquiry chair and Member for Fairfax Ted O'Brien said: "Feral cats kill over three billion native animals a year which equates to a kill rate of more than 1,100 per cat. These are truly horrific numbers.

"One of the great tragedies of last year's Black Summer Bushfires was the loss of wildlife, with between one and three billion animals perishing. To think that feral cats kill more wildlife on an annual basis really put this problem in perspective.

"Feral cats still need to be culled, but it's going to take time before we have the technology to rid these lethal carnivores from our natural environment at scale.

"This is why we need a new national conservation mission."

Several local government areas have highlighted the issue of roaming cats at night and have introduced penalties to prevent this from happening.

It's now up to the inquiry to see if this could be rolled out on a national scale.

Project Noah has been set up to see what can be done to curtail the billions of animals that are being killed or devoured every year.

That campaign will 'bring together the expertise and resources of governments, communities, the private sector and philanthropic groups to protect threatened native species from the predation of feral cats and other predators'.

Other ideas that are being tossed around include 'increased support for desexing', 'registration and microchipping', and a 'national cat ownership education campaign'.

Don't hold your breath as these inquiries usually take some time to be completed and enacted. Mittens can freely roam the night streets, however those nights could soon be numbered.

Featured Image Credit: Mark Marathon (Creative Commons)

Topics: Animals, Australia