A contest in New Zealand to kill feral domestic cats has provoked worldwide condemnation.
The annual North Canterbury Hunting Competition, held in the northern part of South Island at the end of June, offered cash prizes for individuals to cull a range of non-native wild and domestic species, including deer, pigs, hares, rabbits and even wallabies and possums, as well as cats.
According to its Facebook page, a total of 371 cats were trapped, identified as being feral and then shot.
Animal welfare groups criticised the hunt organisers for creating a category for children, saying this had nothing to do with conservation.
But New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (DoC) has told BBC Wildlife that feral cats have a major impact on the environment. “The control of feral cats through this competition will benefit native wildlife,” says landscape threats science manager Clayson Howell. “As cats can roam very large distances, this control effort may reduce cat density on adjacent public conservation land.”
The DoC says it manages feral cats in areas where they pose a “significant threat” to native species.
These areas include Arthur’s Pass National Park and Lake Sumner Forest Park (both in the Canterbury region) to protect the orange-fronted parakeet, also known as the kākāriki karaka, and on Stewart Island (Rakiura) at the bottom end of South Island to protect the New Zealand dotterel or pukunui.
Cats also feed on native lizards, bats and the endemic large flightless crickets known as wētā. They can harbour the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, and when their faeces wash into the sea in water runoff, it can cause the deaths of both Hector’s and Critically Endangered Māui dolphins.
New Zealand is aiming to entirely eradicate some of the worst invasive predators over the next two and half decades. Predator Free 2050 is targeting rats, possums and the three non-native mustelids found there, ferrets, stoats and weasels, but cats are not included.
Howell says it is reviewing whether feral cats and other introduced predators should be part of the programme. “Managing cats in New Zealand is a complex issue and there is a growing view that national-level legislation is needed,” he says. “Currently, there are not centralised rules for the management of cats in the same way there for dogs and no lead agency for cat management.”
One of the key initiatives is to encourage responsible cat ownership to reduce the recruitment of domestic animals into the feral population. “We support, in principle, the desexing, microchipping and registering of domestic cats,” Howell says.
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