Comments on: Roadkill of the week – Feral Cat, Phillip Creek, NT

By: BirdAdvocate

BirdAdvocate — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:02:37 +0000

Bob, an ally of ours here in the United States is beginning to draw national attention. It seems the coyote, a wild canine, has been expanding into wider ranges, due to the abundance of… you guessed it, feral cats for food!

By: Bob Gosford

Bob Gosford — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:27:55 +0000

Hey Fredex – I love those White-wings! That flash of colour in the bushes, a tweet and then gone – to reappear there, and there…literally brilliant – yes indeed the Ooooh, Ahhh responses!
I’m sure there are some strategies for getting the small brown (and blue) jobs back onto your land – but if there is a heavy avian and mammal predation force then it can be hard to get over – as you’ve showed – and to maintain it over time may be even harder…faith, trust and a good eye with the .22?
Cheers.

By: BirdAdvocate

BirdAdvocate — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:25:19 +0000

I heard this one from an ex-wife of mine, and yes, it is cruel. She hunted stock killing dogs/coyotes in Central Texas. She said for some of the smartest you have to be meaner than they are. She claimed a stout treble hook in a meat ball on a steel leader suspended from a tree branch would do the trick.
She was a lovely woman, and a good back-up with her .44 Magnum, until she decided to move on.

By: fredex

fredex — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:02:05 +0000

We are regenerating our degraded property and after some years achieved success sufficient to enable several bird species to become residents for the first time owing to the improvement in native vegetation. Up to that time we had shot some several thousand rabbits, and then calice and myxo got rid of most of the rest, dozens of foxes and a similar number of cats.
White-winged Fairy-wrens came to live with us and on our walks we would regularly stop at one vicinity and watch for the flutter of that brilliant blue with the goal umpire flags waving. Visitors would go “Oooh!! Ahhh!!’
After a few years they disappeared and have never returned.
My unproven hypothesis is that we had made the habitat suitable for them but also simultaneously made them vulnerable to cats and foxes by eliminating the rabbits as a food source [who, incidentally have recently come back] and improving the ground cover so that the ferals have surprise on their side. Such is the ground cover now that shooting is too difficult to do successfully and we can’t trap effectively either.
Well we had them for a while.

By: Bob Gosford

Bob Gosford — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:50:36 +0000

Go with the flow Chris…and glad I put a smile on your dial!

By: Chris Graham

Chris Graham — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:42:10 +0000

I’m not sure how it occurred, but I just spent five minutes reading an article from Bob Gosford on roadkill… well, feral cats actually… and I actually enjoyed it. V confusing.

By: Bob Gosford

Bob Gosford — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:31:24 +0000

Oh, and further to BA’s comments – I prefer a .410 single shot with a light load – birdshot seems to be best – for walking around. For a fixed shot – like the meat bait on string – a .22 worked just fine – if you can set it up so you’ve got a clear shot from a rest on your porch you can sit, have a quiet drink and with a pre-set torch or spot light and zeroed-in .22 you can get some good results.

By: Bob Gosford

Bob Gosford — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:25:47 +0000

John & BA – see the pdf here about trapping cats in “padded-jaw” traps – though I have my real doubts (glad to be convinced otherwise) about the efficacy of such (or any) traps – from my limited experience most/many feral cats are just too clever to be enticed into a trap – padded or otherwise.
One trick I was shown was to get a lump of meat and to tie it on a stout wire or heavy string and suspend it from a tree branch – cats will spend some considerable time trying to get to the meat – perhaps long enough to get a clear shot at it!
And I’m curious as to why the ferals have continued to stay away from John’s property – good to hear that the birds have come back though – and I note the comment about the small birds suffering under the predation of the species that gain from suburbia and our domestic plant management. Planting lots of small dense undergrowth might assist.
And further to BA’s comments about numbers – I’ve heard figures from 10 million to 18 million and upwards in Australia but am doubtful about whether any of those figures have any real basis other than statistical guesswork…don’t forget that though we have a land area similar to the continental USA we have a far smaller population…

By: harrybelbarry

harrybelbarry — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:18:31 +0000

About 20 years ago, some friends and i were on a property out west and shot a large cat. The body would have been about 1 metre long(not counting the tail) and had a head the size of a big dog and had very large fangs.It had just caught a rabbit and was under a tree, when he looked into the spot-light and caught a lead bullet in the head.It would have been third or fourth generation feral cat (male).Was going to skin it but it pissed all over its self (male urine). They are a pest to our native animals and birds and yes the fence line is the feral line.

By: John Bennetts

John Bennetts — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:52:43 +0000

Over several years I shot all the ferals on my property – about 40 in all. 20 years later, I have only seen one or two visiting moggies and the birds have returned.

By way of balance, I note that bird populations are depleted much more when low vegetation and other shelter is absent than simply due to the local presence of cats. This is probably due to the predation from above as kookaburras, butcher-birds, crows and currawongs more easily take birds and young which cannot hide or shelter.

Regarding trapping cats… possum traps do a pretty good job. The NT rangers should try a few in their culverts. This allows release without harm of unlucky native animals.