Cat ban a great idea, but one that'll never happen

Wednesday, 8 January 2020

OPINION: A decision by independent commissioners to ban cats from a proposed new Hamilton subdivision is admirable from a conservation perspective but probably futile from most other points of view.

While hearing an application to develop a 105 hectare subdivision near the western bank of the Waikato River at Peacocke the commissioners were told a nearby area of native forest was home to a colony of rare native long tailed bats which would be at risk from cats in the estimated 800 new homes.

The developers and the Department of Conservation have both appealed the commissioner's decision to the Environment Court with one saying the cat restrictions are too tough the other claiming they don't go far enough.

Anyone who has ever owned a cat, or more precisely been owned by a cat, could tell them that cats don't recognise boundaries, local government rules or pronouncements by courts or kings. They come and go pretty much as they please. They won't have to live in the new subdivision to include the new homes and backyards in their explorative ramblings.

* Keeping cats indoors at night best way to help wildlife, study finds

* Maggie Barry urges SPCA to kill stray cats**

Once gardens are established birds will set up home in the shrubbery and the inevitable rats and mice will also soon move in as they have with people for the past several thousand years. Other introduced pests will no doubt also check out the new community for easy pickings. Stoats, ferrets, weasels and possums will all show up from time to time unannounced, uninvited and usually unseen. Cats will be no different. Rules, court orders, fences and dogs won't keep them out. They will just add to the adventure and challenge.

Amberfield subdivision will provide over 800 new houses but residents won't be able to bring their cats with them.

This is not the first attempt to restrict or control cats in an urban environment. In 2017 an anonymous campaigner distributed notes to households in a Taranaki community warning that poison would laid every week until the stray cats were brought under control. The legality of the proposed operation and the qualifications of the operator were not known and the campaign failed as the Hamilton one will. That is not to say cats are not a serious threat to native wild life. They are and of all the introduced predators which pose a threat to native birds, lizards and geckos, they are by far the most lethal. Forget the idea that an overfed moggy won't hunt. Obesity is no deterrent to murdering little birds and other small critters. Equally forgettable is the idea of keeping cats indoors. Try it for a few days and nights, decontaminate the house and think again.

Our native wildlife has evolved over millions of years without the inbuilt instinct to avoid cats. They had aerial predators, owls, hawks, falcons and, until a few hundred years ago, the biggest eagle in the world. They knew how to avoid these but not ground based predators.

In one of her first public announcements former Conservation Minister Maggie Barry asked SPCA to start putting down stray cats, rather than neutering and releasing them. She said releasing stray cats was one of the most foolish and counterproductive techniques she had heard. Then Prime Minister John Key however distanced himself from the potential backlash from cat lovers and said putting down cats was not Government policy.

While Central Government may be hesitant to take on the cat lobby both Wellington and Lower Hutt city councils at least considered limits on the number of cats people may own, curfews and destruction of strays.

Would-be MP Gareth Morgan, who took a battering for his proposed cat eradication plan, applauded the councils. He said it was 'sheer madness' to have regulations for most other domestic animals, but not cats.

He was of course absolutely correct. We require dogs to be registered and microchipped, we use 1080 to control the spread of bovine Tb and kill stoats, we require all cattle to wear electronic ear tags and there are places where horses cannot be ridden but cats are completely uncontrolled.

Even the SPCA has admitted that controlling cats was a very complex issue, and one charged with emotion. The organisation has also said they work with the Department of Conservation to determine how the welfare of native birds could be accommodated alongside that of stray cats and dogs. They are in fact irreconcilable.

This debate will not be decided on the science or logic of eradicating stray cats as it should be. Unrealistic anthropomorphic sentiment will see to that even if we lose all our native species.

If we are to be serious about protecting native wildlife from cats, and we should be, it will take nothing less than nationwide eradication and a total ban on all future cat ownership. We should probably build a new runway and control tower for every pigsty while we are at it.