Australia to give cats a curfew because they are murdering so many other animals | Hacker News Reader

Australia to give cats a curfew because they are murdering so many other animals

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61 pointskoqoo66 comments

Cats have been domestic pets in the UK since at least the times of Roman civilisation, and have been allowed to roam free for much of that time. It's odd to me that there's such a contrast between attitudes towards cats roaming in Europe (which I would say is completely the norm, particularly in e.g. the UK) and the United States (and now Australia), though perhaps this is just down to different native fauna.

> The EU’s executive said Thursday that it is “a strong defender of free movement rights — including of cats” and “categorically” denied it would ever force cats to be kept indoors or on a leash, as one scientific study suggests.

The RSPB themselves have said:

“While we know that cats do kill large numbers of birds in UK gardens, there’s no evidence this is affecting decline in the same way that these other issues are” (habitat/food loss from climate change)

Research in the UK has suggested cats are mostly preying on the "doomed surplus": https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1474-919X....

> we (4) compared the condition of those birds killed by cats versus those killed in collisions, e.g. window strikes. Mean (± sd) cat density was 348 ± 86 cats/km2 (n = 10 sites); considering the eight species most commonly taken by cats, the mean ratios of adult birds/cats and juvenile birds/cats across the five sites were 1.17 ± 0.23 and 3.07 ± 0.74, respectively

> Across species, cat-killed birds were in significantly poorer condition than those killed following collisions; this is consistent with the notion that cat predation represents a compensatory rather than additive form of mortality.

I'm guessing all the really vulnerable (to cats) bird species in europe went extinct long ago already.

This is it. Europe itself is domesticated and there's very little wild left here. Other places, less so.

There was a _slight_ increase in population (and thereby cats) since Roman times...

I have the suspicion the amount of cats in the local ecosystem right now is lower in than it was before humans.

If you look at Natura 2000 reporting[1], the more dense and wealthier the region is, the less wild cats there are. For example, Romania which has roughly 2/3 of the territory of Germany also has twice as many F. silvestris. In the worst case, the wild cat is basically non-existent in the United Kingdom.

I've never seen a study on the matter, but I doubt there are enough feral F. catus to compensate for the loss, notwithstanding the eastern Mediterranean.

[1] https://nature-art17.eionet.europa.eu/article17/species/repo...

I think you seriously underestimate the proportion of domesticated animals in the overall ecosystem. Because humans have grown to numbers that are much much larger than any other mamal of comparable size (largely due to industrialised food production), numbers of our domesticated animals are also much larger than what would be sustained in a normal ecosystem.

Here is an illustration of this https://xkcd.com/1338/

This is not a big deal in the United States as far as I'm aware. At least, nowhere I've ever lived (9 states so far) had anything like a cat curfew. Animal control mostly ignores them and focuses on dogs. If nothing else, Australia's ecosystems are inherently more fragile than those of the Americas and Eurasia just because of the relative isolation. Americas are also relatively more isolated and fragile than Eurasia (big part of why natives were easy to conquer - no horses and very little disease resistance), but not as much as Australia.

That said, even though introduction of cats everywhere but Eurasia was also human action, the contribution of domestic cats to wildlife endangerment is minuscule next to everything else humans do. Habitat loss from cities, monoculture farming, and building roads everywhere does way more destruction than cats can ever do. Cats are arguably even critical to urban rodent control, which is probably why we started keeping them as pets in the first place (aside from being so damn cute). Feeding off our stray trash would put rats and racoons and what not totally out of control if nothing was preying on them.

> no horses and very little disease resistance

From what I read, this is an oversimplification to the point where it removes agency from Native Americans and make the whole topic inherently biased.

By the time the European colonies on the east side of North America had established themselves and sorted out things like independence and were ready to start expanding west around 95% of the Native population to the west had died off due to pandemics of non-native diseases.

The Native tribes had had extensive trade networks that spanned the continent, which unfortunately for them inadvertently also spread those non-native diseases and so the massive die off reached nearly everywhere--even places that European explorers has never come anywhere near.

I don't see how it removes agency from Native Americans to note that after suffering what was in effect nearly an extinction level event it was not hard for European invaders to conquer the survivors.

> The RSPB themselves have said.....there’s no evidence this is affecting decline

The RSPB know which side their bread is buttered. They are a charity who get their donations from "animal lovers", inducing cat 'owners'. They certainly won't say anything which might prejudice this source of income.

> It's odd to me that there's such a contrast between attitudes towards cats roaming in Europe

Plenty of people here in Blighty despise roaming cats leaving turds in their gardens and killing the local wildlife.

I feel like the attitude towards outdoor cats online in the United States is a lot different than the attitude in regular life, at least where I live in California.

There are a ton of cats that wander outside in our neighborhood, and I have never heard a single person say anything about it. Online, you get flamed if you even hint at your cat being outside.

I've barred cats from the garden here after cleaning up a pile of trash for the nth time. It took some doing but it's mostly solved and it is incredible how quickly the birds seem to have found out that our garden is a safe haven. I've seen bird species that I didn't even know were in this region.

I'm curious how you did this?

A fair while ago, I had luck with motion activated sprinklers for raccoons. I would think they would be effective for cats also.

You can keep cats out of an area with electric wires.

If you want perfect, 100% exclusion you will need three hot wires:

- one about 4" below top of fence, but only 2" out from the face of the fence

- one at roughly top of fence, but 4" out from the face of the fence

- one 2" above the top of the fence, in line with the face.

... which gives you a negative (?) overhang for a climber and the top wire is insurance that they can't somehow reach/slink over the first two.

100% success over 36 months against families of raccoons who were irresistibly attracted to (otherwise) defenseless chickens. Yes, raccoons > cats both physically and mentally.

Raccoons are incredible. Both the smarts and the agility are off the scale and they are so good in planning ahead that they tend to succeed just because they are able to pull off feats that you only realize in retrospect were within their abilities. They have the cuteness factor but underneath that is a ferocious and cunning little predator that makes a cat look like a bumbling fool. Fortunately we do not have raccoons here so the opposition is manageable.

You must not have trees? The cats in my area don't even need to scale the fence. That's a break glass kind of maneuver for them. One cat in the neighborhood climbs a tree, jumps onto a rooftop, walks along the top of a fence line, jumps to the next house, then uses trees in the new yard.

So again, how does one prevent that? To me, it's really not even worth attempting as it will always be futile. The only thing that has really slowed down the backyard visitors in my yard is by allowing my cats to mark the area as theirs. After a couple of skirmishes, the other cats learn it's not worth it in that area.

Oh, right…

Yes, our chicken runs are in a quarter acre cleared area.

This would not work with overhanging trees.

A 2.5 meter (8 foot) wall topped with very floppy chicken coop fencing dangling outward from the top. They absolutely hate it because it doesn't feel stable (which it isn't)... And closing off every hole at ground level, I have to admit that I have a new appreciation of the size holes that cats can get through.

If there is an Einstein amongst cats I think there is still a viable path through a tree that is relatively close to fence but it would require some pretty tricky jumps and there would be no way back out.

>I've barred cats from the garden here

curiosity begs to know precisely how you've done this. neither of my cats scale my 8' privacy wooden fence, but that's because they are comfy (fat and lazy/have no interest to leave) house cats that are allowed to play in the back yard. however, the neighborhood roaming cats have no problem scaling the fence, as both of my cats are aware when they chase to defend their turf.

See other comment.

In Western Australia (I think), cats are already restricted to the house plus exterior deck/veranda/patio, which must be caged to prevent them from going further. This is referred to as a ‘catio’. I suspect that, given the bugs, putting an insect screen around your patio has other benefits too.

Googling for other articles in this with more details, it looks the places that have implemented cat curfews are requiring cats to be indoors at night.

That's interesting, because in the US most concern over cats killing other animals is for birds and those birds are almost all diurnal. The non-birds cats kill a lot of are also mostly diurnal or crepuscular (active around sunrise and sunset). The nocturnal animals cats kill seem to be mostly things that most people are happy to have them kill (rats and mice).

So in the US if there was a cat curfew I'd expect it to be that cats have to be indoors by dawn, and can't be let out until the end of twilight.

A cat curfew at night in Australia suggests that it is nocturnal animals Australians are worried about. Which animals are those?

Are cats not as big a problem for diurnal animals there because those animals are scary Australian animals that cats are afraid to fuck with, or scary Australian animals that people are happy to have cats get rid of?

I would not be drawing connections to reality from government actions. California imposed COVID curfew [1] just because they could, not because the viruses are nocturnal. At best, if there was actually any thought put into it at all, it's to trap feral cats at night, when they are most active, and if any house cat gets trapped too the owner can be told to get stuffed and ticketed for violating the curfew.

1. https://www.kcra.com/article/california-limited-curfew-covid...

This is not an issue just for Australia. There seems to be an epidemic of stray cats here in the US also. Many come from people that leave their animals behind when they have to move, and the issue seems to escalate every time there is a downturn in the economy.

The stray situation is even worse in europe. US you might see a couple random strays in your neighborhood. Certain cities in europe you can walk 10 minutes and probably come by 100 cats along the way.

Stray animal control in the USA varies by region. In the northeast, catch-neuter-release programs have been so effective, it's difficult to find strays and if you want a pet from an animal rescue, it'll cost several hundred dollars to get an animal from elsewhere. Usually "elsewhere" is the south, where CNR programs have been less effective, strays still abound, and rescue prices are much lower (plus you can easily obtain a pet for $0 if one just follows you home).

it's just a cultural misunderstanding, in europe cats are not considered a problem, they are just one of tge species of animals that live in symbiosis with humans in the cities. just like birds. in Rome the local authorities actually pay people to feed the cats

Well if the risk of an outdoor cat is that bird populations decline, I don’t see how having probably ten cats to a person in a European city doesn’t harm that. Whether it was tradition or not doesn’t mean its a good idea. It was once tradition to dump the chamber pot out the window.

Somehow, considering the bad job humans do with maintaining a population of humans healthy and happy, I find the idea of entrusting control of animal populations to humans bewildering, but then, I was born in Istanbul, and I think our attitude towards street cats is probably well known by this point. After all, Turkish does not have a word to reflect the concept of a stray cat, they're street cats to us. Currently living in Germany, I miss seeing cats in the streets, though the occasional duck and goose sort of make up for it in a weird way, though the Geese can get far more aggressive than any street cat.

Where I live in Southern California outdoor cats are socially discouraged because they often end up as coyote food.

every time I see a missing pet poster in California that's what I think of

occasionally you'll hear a harrowing mad scramble in the street, and I'm thinking "it's happening"

I live in the suburbs in SF Bay Area, and at night when I walk my dog, I never see cats roaming around. I see coyotes, foxes, skunks, and raccoons. My guess is if you don't kill the coyotes and foxes they control the cat population.

"Do We Really Know That Cats Kill By The Billions? Not So Fast"

https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/02/03/170851048/do-we...

That article is US-centric and doesn't apply to Australia, where the problem is much greater than birds.

Where I live we're completely overrun with squirrels. I'd have no problem with more roaming cats killing them, ditto for pigeons. Are they actually threatening species or just eating animals? If it's the latter it doesn't seem like a problem. Fewer cats is going to mean more vermin, we'll see how people like it then.

Beware the law of unintended consequences.

For example, see the “Four Pests Campaign”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign

Exactly, my free roaming cat brings home a large rat present for me at least once a month.

If you can breed a cat so that it only eats the "bad" small animals, go ahead.

But you do need to remember cats tend to love to hunt _everything_. Just a few freely roaming cats are enough to make sure you won't be hearing any small birds chirping in the trees in your area. Because they're all dead.

In Australia, cats absolutely shred through native animal populations. They threaten, and have caused, the extinction of many species.

https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/invasive-species/feral...

https://invasives.org.au/our-work/feral-animals/cats-in-aust...

In London in the evenings we see more foxes than cats, and they do kill birds. Maybe we should dress in pink jackets and persecute them?

I am fairly sure foxes are far worse at bird murdering — e.g. they can’t really climb trees just for a starter.

I find the title and article really strange. Murder is specifically defined as the UNLAWFUL killing of a HUMAN BEING.

Murder basically is a legal definiton. Anything else is just killing. And I don't think this definition applies to cats at all.

"Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethough" (1)

1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder

So are any of this cats going to be put in trial for "murder".

They’d just plead nyan compos mentis

The cats I met will just take the 5 th.

No, it's more of a Judge Dredd type situation.

> are any of this cats going to be put in trial for "murder"

“For centuries, the courts of France, Italy, Switzerland, and other nearby countries tried pigs, dogs, rats, grasshoppers, and snails for crimes against people, property, and God. These animal trials were of two kinds: (1) secular suits against individual creatures who had maimed or killed humans; and (2) ecclesiastic cases against vermin like mice and locusts, who were excommunicated for their grain-related crimes.”

https://daily.jstor.org/when-societies-put-animals-on-trial/

isn't that pretty much any shelter that isn't a no kill shelter?

It seems like lawmakers in Australia have too much time on their hands. It must be one of the smoothest functioning countries in the world.

Like the lawmakers in the US or really any other country fair any better at nonsensical things that make their way to law.

Australia has been fighting with invasive species for a long time. Just look at the problems they had with rabbits. Dingos are pretty much already diluted with domesticated dog genes, so there goes that species in a few generations.

It would seem like trying to protect native species should be a priority for the government.

New evidence suggests Dingos are actually ‘mostly’ (for the meaning of the word where most is more than 50%) just dingo:

https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/29/resea...

I'm not in Australian and I know Australia has a fairly unique ecosystem and this necessitates different laws than other countries. Similarly weird laws exist in every country. For example in my area it's specifically illegal not to provide heating of a specific quality to tenants, because we have a season called "winter" where temperatures drop enough to be deadly.

Hopefully we can develop society to the point where ecological concerns are no longer seen as superfluous

Short-sighted -- Austraila's unique fauna is a huge source of tourism, a considerable part of Australia's GDP. Protecting fauna is as much an economic interest as an envrionmental.

(Why only feral cats, and say, not global warming, is another issue and illustrates where economic interests trump envrionmental ones.)

You think losing 2 billion of Australia's unique native fauna each year is a triviality?

Feral cats are a serious problem in Australia just like other introduced species. The government has had programs for controlling and eradicating them for many decades.

Chinese people cook cats and dogs, Australia should allow more immigrants. Chinese mafia also lends them money to start business in other countries like restaurants. And China's covert overseas police that operates in each city controls them. It's a win-win situation. /s

Really going for the mask off racism on Hacker News today, are we?

My guess is HN will see more of this, with the decline of Reddit and the subsequent dispersion of certain... opinions... looking for a new forum to infect

Some government's zealots will go high and beyond to bury any criticism, but HN is smarter than that, keep being informed:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/20/explainer-chin...

It's not that China doesn't operate in such ways, it's that it's got nothing to do with the topic at hand and it's also a shallow and racist take on the topic

When I posted the comment they only said the cooking cats and dogs part, so even worse!

It's a culinary practice of their culture, what's the problem with that? Stay informed:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/03/09/china.animal...

As an opinion, suggesting that Chinese immigrants could be a solution to the feral cat problem in Australia is ignorant, racist, and worthless.

Interesting, and how is that social score thingy working for you?

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