THE FERAL CAT (FELIS CATUS)

The feral cat is found in nearly all habitats across Australia. It has caused the extinction of some species on islands and has contributed to the disappearance of many ground-dwelling birds and mammals on the mainland. Feral cat control is feasible on islands, but elsewhere, management is difficult due to the lack of effective and humane broad-scale control techniques, and the presence of domestic cats.

History Ecology

Cats have been in Australia since European Feral cats are predominantly solitary and nocturnal, settlement, and may have arrived as early as the spending most of the day in the safety of a shelter 17th century with Dutch shipwrecks. By the 1850s, such as a burrow, log or rock pile. Rabbits have feral cat colonies had become established in the aided their spread by providing food and burrows wild. Intentional releases were made in the late for shelter. There is typically one feral cat for every 1800s, particularly around farms and homesteads, one to two kilometre square but this may be larger if in the hope that cats would control rabbits, rats and food supplies are scarce. mice. Feral cats are carnivores and can survive with Feral cats are now found in all habitats except limited access to water, as they use moisture from the wettest rainforests on the mainland and some their prey. They generally eat small mammals, offshore islands. but also catch birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and For management purposes, cats are divided into insects - taking prey up to the size of a brush-tail three categories — domestic, stray and feral possum. In pastoral regions, they feed largely on — although they are all the same species and young rabbits, but in other areas feral cats prey individual cats may move between categories. mainly on native animals. Domestic cats are owned and cared for, and stray From the age of about one year, feral cats can cats are those found roaming cities, towns and breed in any season. They have up to two litters of some rural holdings. Feral cats, which survive about four kittens each year, but few of the young without any human contact or assistance, are survive. the main target of Australian Government control Dingos and foxes may restrict feral cat numbers by programs. both direct predation and competition. Feral cats also fall prey to wedge-tailed eagles.

e n vi r o n m en t . g o v . a u Distribution of feral cats in Australia

Sources: National Land & Water Resources Audit (2008) Assessing invasive animals in Australia 2008, NLWRA, Canberra./SEWPaC (2010) Feral animals on offshore islands database located at http://ww w .environment.go v .au/biodiversity/invasive/ferals/islands/

Impact

There is clear evidence that feral cats have had a zone, and seriously affected bilby, mala and heavy impact on island fauna. On Macquarie numbat populations. In some instances, feral cats Island, for example, feral cats are implicated in the have directly threatened the success of recovery sharp decline of a subspecies of the red-fronted programs for endangered species. parakeet in the 1880s and its extinction by 1891. Feral cats can carry infectious diseases such as On the mainland, they are identified as a threat to toxoplasmosis and sarcosporidiosis, which can be 35 species of birds, 36 mammals, 7 reptiles and transmitted to native animals, domestic livestock 3 amphibians. Cats have probably contributed and humans. If rabies were to be accidentally to the extinction of many small to medium-sized introduced into Australia, there is a high risk that mammals and ground-nesting birds in the arid feral cats would act as carriers of the disease.

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BIO55.0610