3 ms·

This is going to sound silly but I’m absolutely serious: where are the cats?

subungual 6y ago
It sounds like the numbers they're dealing with may be well beyond what could be controlled by cats. Additionally, they may be wary, as Australia is already a case study in what can happen as a result of introducing one species to control another's population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toads_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toads_in_Australia
- underseacables 6y ago
  I once had a cat that lived in a work shed. Almost every day he brought me something dead. I hear you but it was just the logical thought to come to mind that I wondered why individuals didn’t have cats, or what the cats were doing. Granted now I’ve got a cat that can’t be bothered to even chase something, she just ..looks at it.
  - subungual 6y ago
    Haha, yeah, fair. I imagine the cats that do live there are probably enjoying themselves through this but have had their capacity overwhelmed.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
  I was about to say... shouldn't the cane toads take care of that?
- AndrewOMartin 6y ago
  No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
- zizee 6y ago
  There are probably millions of feral cats roaming australia.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
neuronic 6y ago
Australia doesn't have native cat species and introduced feral cats are considered invasive and aggressively hunted and killed by the government. Feral cats decimate indiginous rodents (not the mice here).
b0rsuk 6y ago
Check out the documentary "Running Wild". Cats are part of the problem, including camels, foxes, horses and other invasive species. They went through a lot of trouble to hunt down cats and contain them. Cats wreck native animal populations. They went so far as to fence off areas and train labrador dogs so that they don't hunt native predators such as the (tiny) marsupial "badgers".
Jedd 6y ago
Cats are not ideal - they destroy native wildlife, and carry disease. Preferable (natives) would be snakes and raptors. But the problem in any of those cases are the rate of population change. As per TFA, mice are fertile at 6 weeks old. What they don't mention is that their gestation period is 3 weeks, females give birth to up to a dozen pups, and can mate immediately after birth. So in perfectly suited environments like we have here in Australia now, you're looking at a potential order of magnitude growth every 3-4 weeks. Cats, snakes, raptors, etc have a near-flat population growth, regardless of the amount of additional food around for them.

It sounds like the numbers they're dealing with may be well beyond what could be controlled by cats. Additionally, they may be wary, as Australia is already a case study in what can happen as a result of introducing one species to control another's population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toads_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toads_in_Australia

underseacables 6y ago
I once had a cat that lived in a work shed. Almost every day he brought me something dead. I hear you but it was just the logical thought to come to mind that I wondered why individuals didn’t have cats, or what the cats were doing. Granted now I’ve got a cat that can’t be bothered to even chase something, she just ..looks at it.
- subungual 6y ago
  Haha, yeah, fair. I imagine the cats that do live there are probably enjoying themselves through this but have had their capacity overwhelmed.
tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
I was about to say... shouldn't the cane toads take care of that?
AndrewOMartin 6y ago
No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
zizee 6y ago
There are probably millions of feral cats roaming australia.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

neuronic 6y ago

Australia doesn't have native cat species and introduced feral cats are considered invasive and aggressively hunted and killed by the government. Feral cats decimate indiginous rodents (not the mice here).

b0rsuk 6y ago

Check out the documentary "Running Wild". Cats are part of the problem, including camels, foxes, horses and other invasive species. They went through a lot of trouble to hunt down cats and contain them. Cats wreck native animal populations. They went so far as to fence off areas and train labrador dogs so that they don't hunt native predators such as the (tiny) marsupial "badgers".

Jedd 6y ago

Cats are not ideal - they destroy native wildlife, and carry disease. Preferable (natives) would be snakes and raptors. But the problem in any of those cases are the rate of population change. As per TFA, mice are fertile at 6 weeks old. What they don't mention is that their gestation period is 3 weeks, females give birth to up to a dozen pups, and can mate immediately after birth. So in perfectly suited environments like we have here in Australia now, you're looking at a potential order of magnitude growth every 3-4 weeks. Cats, snakes, raptors, etc have a near-flat population growth, regardless of the amount of additional food around for them.