There’s no doubt that it can be rough down under in Australia. It’s about to get a lot worse for the cats who roam the Outback using their natural predatory instincts.
It sounds like jokes Andy Samberg and Bill Hader would use for their “Laser Cats” series, but there is actually a war-on-cats in Australia.
As the Washington Post reported, Australia has announced a plan to trap or kill 2 million feral cats by 2020 in order to preserve the native birds species.
The country actually now has a threatened-species Commissioner, Gregory Andrews. And he actually said that the Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt “is declaring war on feral cats, and he’s asked me to take charge of that program.”
All the territories have agreed to refer to the cats as “pests,” who will be trapped or killed, through poison or shooting, in a manner that is “humane and effective.”
The cats are an invasive species gone wild, as one estimate has them killing 75 million native Australian animals a day. Many species have already gone extinct, providing the rallying cry around this plan to get rid of 2 million cats.
CNN is calling it a “catastrophe,” not just for the targeted cats, but for the native species affected from when, as CNN refers to it, the cats “colonized” the area starting in the 1850’s. Also thrown in there are lines like “the cat’s out of the bag.”
Morrissey, formerly of the Smiths, is against the program and equated it to the death of Cecil the Lion. French actress Brigitte Bardot referred to it as a “an animal genocide.”
The outcries has actually led to an exchange of letters between the Australian government and celebrity critics.
Andrews also tried to reiterate on the radio program though that “we don’t hate cats. We just can’t tolerate the damage that they’re doing anymore to our wildlife.”
Those being targeted are feral cats. However, Andrews did have words of caution for domestic cat owners. Emphasis is added:
Yikes. Be careful with your cat if you live in Australia then.
