: A cat in the house saves the birds in the bush #IndiaNEWS #International Canberra, Mar 2: Cats are skillful hunters. In Australia, public campaigning and local government regulation are helping to

A cat in the house saves the birds in the bush #IndiaNEWS #International
Canberra, Mar 2: Cats are skillful hunters. In Australia, public campaigning and local government regulation are helping to keep wildlife and domestic cats safer.
In suburban Australia, a cat sits in a window, gazing indolently through the glass at fairy-wrens and thornbills popping about in the shrubs. Domesticated in the temples of Egypt around 4,000 years ago, cats were so popular that people transported them around the globe, including Australia.
However, these beloved pets also rank as one of the most potent hunters, able to wipe out entire species when arriving in lands whose native inhabitants are unfamiliar with feline hunters.
Worldwide, domestic cats are responsible for over a quarter of modern mammal, bird and reptile extinctions.
Australia is now leading the world in finding ways to reduce their impact.
When cats arrived in Australia with European settlers, they soon left their domestic roles and spread across the continent. Within a human lifetime (around 70 years), they had occupied rainforests, deserts and every habitat in between, eventually covering the entire mainland and larger islands. In that wave, more than 20 mammal species unique to Australia were driven to extinction mainly due to hungry cats.
These included creatures such as lesser bilbies, pig-footed bandicoots, rabbit-rats, and hopping mice. Today, the pressure continues unabated: feral cats kill nearly two billion Australian mammals, birds, reptiles and frogs every year; many native species continue to dwindle, and some are close to extinction, thanks partly or wholly to cat predation.
The urgency of addressing cat impacts in Australia has forced local scientists to innovate. Mainland fenced exclosures, cat eradications from islands, new poison delivery systems, smart fire and grazing management are just some of the tools keeping native species from extinction.
Its not just feral cats that menace Australian wildlife; that indolent cat in the window is looking at the fairy-wrens and thornbills with murder in its heart. Even though pet cats are fed by their owners, they will still hunt when outside.
Pet cats hunt at a lower rate than feral cats, but since they live at high densities, the overall predation toll per square kilometre is actually higher in towns than it is in the bush, and there are documented examples of situations where just one or two cats have wiped out local populations of mammals, birds or reptiles.
Just as Australia leads the world in the management of feral cats, it is also a global leader in the management of pet cats. Surveys consistently show the Australian public is more aware of cat impacts, and more supportive of managing pet cats, than the public in other countries.

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