Thread: Cats?

Originally Posted by Friwi

I had my granddad who was a leading researcher on toxoplasmosis .
He was taking good care of the felines crossing the property under a 100m range!
I think cats should be registered, so that the money from that registration goes to contribute to desexing/ getting rid of the rest of the feral cats.
Also domestic cat should all have collars with 2 or 3 bells , as some can stalk preys with out making the one bell ring! The flashing light on the collar is a good thing as well.

Doubt you would achieve much by registering Cats, Dogs are primarily registered for their ability to hurt people and transmit things much worse than Toxoplasmosis. Otherwise I guess you could argue for registering a large number of domestic and stock animals. Look at the damage done by escaped rabbits and goats.

Registering and collaring Cats is pretty much what they do in parts of Australia. Seems silly after mowing down ever increasing swathes of land so that you can have your quarter acre of arid land and removing the natural habitat for the birds and lizards anyway.

I wont hesitate to shoot a feral cat if I see one, but this is just more do-good PC BS.

The registration would be there to get money to finance desexing / eradication, limit a little bit the number of cats per house hold, and have a very good reason to eradicate any cat that is not registered/ microchipped.
I just try to have a more diplomatic approach than to shoot any cat on site " à la Gareth Morgan"!

Originally Posted by Friwi

The registration would be there to get money to finance desexing / eradication, limit a little bit the number of cats per house hold, and have a very good reason to eradicate any cat that is not registered/ microchipped.
I just try to have a more diplomatic approach than to shoot any cat on site " à la Gareth Morgan"!

Realistically your registration money will be used in BS admin and paper pushing like so many other similar ideas.

Dosen't Gareth Morgan own a cat?

We could follow Australia also and register boats, firearms and everything else possible. Definitely solves tax gathering issues and keeps people employed.

Friwi I take it you hate cats?

Originally Posted by Friwi

The registration would be there to get money to finance desexing / eradication, limit a little bit the number of cats per house hold, and have a very good reason to eradicate any cat that is not registered/ microchipped.
I just try to have a more diplomatic approach than to shoot any cat on site " à la Gareth Morgan"!

proving ownership of a cat might be quite problematc but mainly only the rule followeres would pay.
the biggest problem is stray dumped cats with no owners no,one to feed and curb at least some of thie more murderous instints.
i have and now like cats but in the bush or bird hunting areas they die on site if i remember to load the gun right up
its not the cats fault but its not the birds or mine either and given the condition of some i,ve cleaned up it was probably a small mercy.

Oh the old cat shit in your garden!
Easy fix!
Collect said cat shit and dump it on the cats lawn!
Done at night.
Cat no longer shits in my garden they always shit in the same place. Problem solved.
Pays not to get caught though, you need to dig a little scrape as well sort of make it look as though it's shat there.
Looks like it's working for me at the moment

Originally Posted by Sideshow

Oh the old cat shit in your garden!
Easy fix!
Collect said cat shit and dump it on the cats lawn!
Done at night.
Cat no longer shits in my garden they always shit in the same place. Problem solved.
Pays not to get caught though, you need to dig a little scrape as well sort of make it look as though it's shat there.
Looks like it's working for me at the moment

Not sure why you would be concerned about being caught.

A man in his mid 50's, who is a bit of a cat lover is busy working in his garden. Then he notices the little girl of the neighbours next door who is digging a hole in the middle of the lawn. At first he does not pay to much attention.1/2 h later he realises that the hole she is digging is quite large but says nothing. He just goes inside and have a cup of tea. When he has finished his tea, he goes back out and he sees the little girl who is back filling the hole she had dug out. Approaching the fence, he asks the little girl:
-hi. Why have you been digging a hole for?
-the girl replies: it is to bury my dead gold fish.
- the guy:but that is quite a large hole you dug for a small gold fish
- the girl ,as she just finished backfilling the hole: that is because my dead goldfish is inside your f..king Cat!!!

Originally Posted by MSL

Not sure why you would be concerned about being caught.

You haven't seen my neighbor wife
Also how you going to prove that the shit that your depositing back is from there cat, I'm not paying for the dan sample

When we bought our place, I must have shot or trapped a cat a week for six months, not including the litters I found in the bushes which I promptly tap danced upon. Since then there has been a noticeable increase in bird life. Not just one or two birds, more like triple the coveys of quail etc .

Every cat owner dismisses their own cat as harmless. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not happening.

You're onto it Pointer. They hunt at night. Every fat tame harmless pussy was a deadly tiger in it's younger years.

Your cats aren't catching many native birds because there are not many left in most parts of the country particularly the urbanized parts. Generations of predators and habitat destruction have meant that the native birds (who evolved to cope with ground based predators) were out competed by the introduced species. Those introduced birds are themselves very aggressive so they then push out the natives. If you drive around Canterbury, one of the more modified parts of the country, then all you see is pigeons, magpies, plovers and harrier hawks. All these birds (except pigeons) will attack other the nests of other birds.

If you put your cat in enclosure containing a couple of kiwi and a couple of rats\mice it would catch the kiwi over the mice because it's far bigger, dumber and easier to catch.

Where I live we have lots of Tui, Morepork, Wood Pidgeon, Fantail and the odd waxeye (just found out their not native..) Mainly I think i'ts because we have native Forrest on the edge of our property (we are lucky). Lot's of well fed domestic cats too. Still get some introduced birds especially black birds.

Yep. But, imagine the F-up that will occur if we get rid of all the cats that are dining on rats, mice and birds in no particular order. If there are 6x the amount of rodents to birds - we have a serious problem and 1080 will not fix nuthin.

its a rare cat that will consistently take on big rats any cat is a potential killer including your big useless looking hairy persian.
in my experience cats find birds much more facinating than mice to the point of climbing trees to get at them nests and all.
if they run out of mice or the rodents become more clued up to the moggy bieng about then the cat hunting instincts aroused will take the path of least resistance.
keeping them well fed will curb them doing it to eat but it will not curb that killer instinct inherent in even your laziest lap moggy.
rats and mice have holes generally once down they are safe birds have no such luxury one of ours specialised in hedges and the sparrows blackbirds that live in them.
yes he started on rats and mice and every morning was a mose/rat massacre scene on the doorstep or front lawn but the rodents learnt and moved addresses.
his bent was blinding mice in one eye so he could show me how funny it was watching them run in circles or to make it easy for useless me to participate in the game one of the two
seeing what you thought was the most useless lap warming laziest uglist pumkin head exotic persien emerge from bush reserve at the back of of your house with a tui in its gob
gives you an idea that hunting killing is latent in them all.

It is a no win subject - just upsets people - what they don’t know wont upset them
Saw this on FB this morning - these guys know what they are about - cute we animals - they wouldn’t kill a native bird would they - just trained to kill rats
https://www.facebook.com/DanielRitch...type=3&theater

The native species we have left are the ones that have adapted the best to the preaditors we introduced and the habitat changes we have made e.g. Paradise Ducks are doing fine. There are no weka on the east coast whereas there are heaps on the west coast. East coast is a far more modified environment with far more introduced preaditors.

A cat may catch a few mice but thats largely irrelevant as they can breed faster than they get eaten. It's like trying to shoot rabbits to reduce numbers. Go to a farm with heaps and shoot 1k rabbits (which I have done). Go back the next week and you won't be able to tell the difference because they are breeding so fast they have replaced the 1k that got shot. They are only limited by food sources. If you wanted to control them you would have to kill the last one i.e. blanket the place with 1080 repeatadly (which is the standard approach with high rabbit numbers).