New Zealand has announced plans to eradicate feral cats by 2050, as part of efforts to protect the country’s biodiversity.
Speaking to Radio New Zealand on Thursday, conservation minister Tama Potaka said that feral cats are “stone cold killers” and would be added to the country’s Predator Free 2050 list, which aims to eradicate those animals that have a negative impact on species such as birds, bats, lizards and insects.
Cats had previously been excluded from the list, which includes species such as stoats, ferrets, weasels, rats and possums, but Potaka used the interview to announce a U-turn.
I wish “middlebrow dismissal” had become a more common term. It basically means a knee-jerk rejection of an idea without seriously engaging or investigating it. A “cache dump of prejudices” rather than argument.
This thread is absolutely filled with people who think they know better than kiwi conservationists that have studied and discussed this topic in depth.
Most people didn’t read the story, and don’t actually care, they are just feeling emotions and need to vomit it out. Even if they did read the story, most people don’t really understand things like ecology anyway so it’s unlikely to change their emotional reactions.
It’s still weird to dismiss the insane destructive power of the domestic shorthair. Killing is practically their only pastime
The “baby-fication” of pets is an incredibly damaging culture. People don’t see dogs and cats for what they are and it causes problems in the lives of animals and humans alike.
Cats have the exact same right to bring extinction to this world as we do.
The indigenous species have priority to exist.
Meow, meo meow meow mao meow, meow meow mrrp meow. Meow meow meow meow meow… 😿
TWEET!! Tweet tweet tweet! Tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet tweeeeeet! 🐥
I’m sorry, I read this headline like a Dr. Doofenschmirtz plan, ahahahahahaha
Perry the Catypus on his way to throw some paws
As somebody who (1) loves the beauty of the natural world and (2) lives in the USA, I’m hearing that NZ might be a most excellent place to retire, or even move to earlier.
Why just not eat them?
Honestly, cat is just pretty gross. Did not like at all, even before I knew what it was. Incredibly greasy, very unpleasantly gamey, weirdly stringy, do not recommend.
My grandma use to sell cat meat saying it was rabbit and people liked it back then
I’ve never had cat, but have heard that mountain lion is really good. Supposedly, during WWII, lots of house cat was eaten in the UK and was called roof rabbit.
What kind of cat did you have and what were the circumstances?
What kind of cat did you have and what were the circumstances?
“Cat” (it was cooked, I assume it was a shorthair since there were ample feral shorthairs around), and it was part of a banquet-thing I was at while visiting friends - except sea cucumber (which is revolting it has the exact taste and texture of a loogie) the rest of the food was very good!
(edit: I am not sure british wartime cooking is a great metric to base “Tastes-Goodness” off of)
I’ve had raccoon, which was terrible. Never had the chance to try cat.
Sea cucumber is supposed to be a delicacy, but never had it. Sea urchin is amazing in my experience, but someone here on Lemmy said it was awful. It may be a preparation or freshness issue. I’d like to try sea cucumber.
Never had raccoon, have had opossum and it was… passable. Not something I’d seek out but not bad in a stew.
I can see not liking sea urchin, personally I’m not big on it but it’s not, like, bad bad. Just not my thing.
I’ve had sea cucumber several times and no, man, I encourage you to try it just so that you can share my pain. Cat was deeply eeh, don’t recommend, but sea cucumber is “I have dreams about how bad it is” levels of bad - and whats worse, people really do claim it’s a delicacy! So you can’t just duck under the table and hoark it all out onto your shoes without being rude.
I’d rather snort lines of raw durian than eat sea cucumber again. Seriously if you ever get a chance go for it, it’s spectacularly horrible. You gotta try it.
That sounds terrible. I’ll definitely give it a try.
Darkness
Humanity hungers
Humanity is overrated
We are the extinction event
Is this gonna be like Australia’s war against the Emus? That they lost.
NZ is quite a bit smaller!
But cats are smaller too which either makes it easier for the Kiwis or more like the Australia/emu situation.
Big fan of removing cats from my country in general, they are blight on the native wildlife.
It is not personal but they should all be gone. Boom in mice and rats for a bit after
Are they going to introduce a bigger possum?
Lol! Eradicate feral cats by introducing a bigger possum? Classic NZ humor
I find it kind of amazing that humans will constantly look outwardly as if everything that is happening isn’t a direct result of their own failures as nature’s caretakers. Yes, let’s kill the cats because of all the havoc they’re wreaking on our biodiversity but let’s also ignore all the havoc that we ourselves continue to wreak. Let’s applaud ourselves for caring so much about the environment by slaughtering one of man’s two best friends. Irresponsible cat owners aside, there are ways that (key phrase here) cost money that involve a well-known acronym, TNR to combat feral cat populations. They can be re-homed or put aboard ships to tackle rodent problems at sea and become resident sailor cats. There are better ways than blindly dropping poison fucking sausage and installing automatic poison spray machines around town. As if that won’t result in any accidental deaths of spayed neighborhood outdoor cats with chips, collars, and loving families. This thread has absolutely lost the plot if everyone agrees with the methods put forth in the article. I can assure you, this is some grade A bs.
There are not cheaper ways, though. It’s a monumental task and if it is done incompletely, it was pointless to even undertake.
Most feral animals can’t just be “re-homed”. Cats don’t need humans to be happy and to thrive. They don’t need a house. They don’t need a ship. The most we should do for them is give them a cat island (where they would likely turn cannibal and start consuming each other within a generation).
Have you ever met a truley feral cat they cannot be rehomed.
Yes, let’s kill the cats because of all the havoc they’re wreaking on our biodiversity but let’s also ignore all the havoc that we ourselves continue to wreak.
So because humans do bad things, we should allow bad thing to continue to happen.
I would say you should get directly involved, I am sure there are plenty of groups trying to do exactly what you say which is raise money for alternative solutions, but I kind of have the feeling you’re not going to.
Remember when Europe burned all the cats and that caused the plague to get a lot more out of control? I’m sure it will work out this time though
Very, very different situation, I wouldn’t make the comparison unless:
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You’re ready to get fucking educated on ecology and biology.
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You’re a troll trying to make people react.
It’s called a joke settle down
The amount of reactionary bullshit in this post is overflowing, the “joke” just reads like more of it.
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Cats are causing lots of harm to the native wildlife there. You know since they didn’t evolve with things similar to cats.
I was kidding
Ten years from now, NZ in chaos as rats swarm the country
The Department of Conservation is very good at controlling rats, possums and stoats. It’s harder to control cats (and dogs) because of irresponsible owners.
Lol yeah
Has sanitation, pest control, and medicine have advanced since the 13th century?
No … we still need cats to do all the heavy lifting.
I was really just joking but people really melted down
You know, I can think of one species that’s a lot more harmful to the environment. Maybe the cats of NZ should start hunting non-native members of that species.
Humans are the species that brought cats to the island which are destroying the local ecosystem. So yeah, getting rid of people would help but that ain’t fucking happening so we have to correct our mistakes where we can.
Are… are you talking about humans?
Yes, but I think we need to distinguish between the native population, which has proven capable of co-existing with the local ecosystem, and the settlers, who’ll need to be culled.
Maybe we can be a little animale and let the aborigines adopt the more tame settlers. Find them nice, loving homes, you know? The rest will unfortunately need to be euthanised.
The Maori brought pigs and had farms. The “noble savage” trope is racist.
So who’s native in New Zealand? How long have they been there. Or the fact that they are not white gives them special privileges.
Or the fact that they are not white gives them special privileges.
You know what, YES! It does! Now go cry about it.
Given Australia and New Zealand’s proximity to one another on the map, it makes sense to assume that the latter was originally settled by explorers from the former; and, indeed, Aboriginal Australian people can be credibly dated back more than 50,000 years, when they were able to walk to the continent from what is now New Guinea.
But no! There’s no real archaeological sign of Aboriginal Australians (or anyone else) settling on the island that would become New Zealand until the Maori arrived from Polynesia, around 800 years ago.
I didn’t leave out a zero; human habitation on New Zealand has a history of less than a thousand years. In fact, the Maori only beat Europeans to New Zealand (which they called “Aotearoa”) by about 300 years, and archaeological records indicate that they brought invasive species with them, too. They also caused the extinction of at least two bird species before European colonization even began.
Maori are great, great people. But I don’t think that they’ve “proven [themselves] capable of co-existing with the local ecosystem” any more than the European descendants have.
(As a side note, the word “aborigines” in that part of the world carries a potentially problematic connotation. Some Aboriginal Australians see it as a holdover from that country’s colonial era.)
human habitation on New Zealand has a history of less than a thousand years
I know. My point is that cats (or the Maori) have a minuscule impact on the environment when compared to settlers.
the word “aborigines” in that part of the world carries a potentially problematic connotation.
I see. What would be a more respectful alternative?
Most of the birds on New Zealand are flightless, because they evolved without natural ground-based predators (they only had threats from birds of prey). Cats’ impact on the avian population is actually pretty dramatic.
Meanwhile, a significant percentage of the islands remains undeveloped. The population of the entire country is only five million, on a landmass larger than the British Isles (population 65m+). Human settlement in NZ is actually pretty light-touch, which is why a ton of movies that need lush outdoor sets are shot there.
What would be a more respectful alternative?
As I understand it, most of that group prefer “Aboriginal Australian.”
Aborigines is Australia, the first people of NZ are the Maori and they’ve only been there since the 1300s
they’ve only been there since the 1300s
So? Please finish that thought.
That means they have only been their a few centuries, so their is still massive potential harm to the environment that has been their much longer.
The ecological impact of an pre-industrial community is generally much smaller than that of an industrial one.
Do cats in new Zealand have a lower than average literacy rate?
Maybe humans should quit playing god and trying to enforce the ecology they deem correct.
Fuck it, if they’re so well adapted, let cats wipe out everything they get their claws on and have them be the new evolutionary starting point. Maybe in a few hundred thousand years we’ll have entirely new winged or underwater feline subspecies, perfectly adapted to every remaining ecological niche.
It would certainly be funnier than this constant battle against windmills of our own making.Maybe humans should quit playing god
This entire plan is an effort to undo unnatural human intervention that is causing the extinction of unique species.
I for one want unique species to continue to live as a greater priority than feral cats. But I guess I just care more about biodiversity.
But we caused the problem. Cats would not be there without stupid people. There are a lot of irresponsible cat owners. Oh my cat has to go outside oh blah blah blah.
