MP heads mission to protect native wildlife from cats

This early morning unexpected visitor on Wolfgang Muschalla’s back steps in Woombye. Tawny Frogmouths sleep during the day. At dusk they shake their disguise and begin their nocturnal hunt. They catch prey in flight, or by sitting motionless in a tree and then swooping down on ground-dwelling prey.

A proposal for a new national conservation mission dubbed ‘Project Noah’ was launched in Nambour’s Quota Park recently, aimed at combatting the killing of native wildlife by feral cats.

Chair of the Australian Parliament’s Environment and Energy Committee, Ted O’Brien MP, was joined by Sylvia Whiting of Wildlife Volunteers Association, along with squirrel gliders and ring-tail possums which recently survived cat attacks, to launch a Parliamentary Inquiry Report that recommends Project Noah and other measures to help protect wildlife from cats.

“These little squirrel gliders and ring-tail possums here today have experienced trauma but they’re the lucky ones,” said Mr O’Brien. “They could just have easily been killed.”

“Feral cats kill over three billion native animals across Australia each year, equating to a kill rate of more than 1100 per cat,” said Mr O’Brien.

“More wildlife is killed by feral cats on an annual basis than all the wildlife that perished in last year’s Black Summer Bushfires, which really puts this problem in perspective.

“Feral cats need to be culled, but it’s going to take time before we have the technology to rid these lethal carnivores from our natural environment at the scale required, and in an affordable and humane way,” said Mr O’Brien.

“And this is where Project Noah comes in”.

Project Noah would aim to expand Australia’s network of predator-free fenced areas and islands. It would bring together the expertise and resources of governments, communities, the private sector and philanthropic groups to protect threatened native species from the predation of feral cats and other predators.

Sylvia Whiting, Chair of Wildlife Volunteers Association, one of Queensland’s longest running wildlife rescue organisations, said “Many of our wonderful wildlife volunteers care for injured, sick and orphaned animals that have fallen victim to cats. The more we can do to protect native species, the better.”

Other recommendations in the Committee’s report included:

• Develop nationally consistent definitions for feral, stray and domestic cats; 

• Research matters such as the prevalence, impact and control of cats, emerging methodologies including gene drive technology; 

• Manage cat-borne diseases, & the relationship between cat predation and habitat degradation;

• Manage domestic cats, including increased support for de-sexing, registration and microchipping, a consideration of night curfews, and a national cat ownership education campaign.