This is a picture of a bush cat. Unlike the image of the cat presented by current propaganda, the average wild creature, including the cat, is thin, hungry and frightened. In Natureland only the strongest survive and that barely.

Fossil records, DNA analysis and distribution factors prove the cat has been in Australia for over 500 years. The Cat was seen by the aborigines as a native animal. There is 'cat-dreaming' and the aborigines regard the cat as a significant food source. The cat is the only non-indigenous animal for which the aborigines had a special name - other non-indigenous animals were seen as the whiteman's animals and were called by their European names.

75% of the diet of the bush cat is rabbit (or was before calicivirus) In the 1930s there were several deliberate attempts by farmers to increase the numbers of cats in the bush in order to keep down rabbits. Studies comparing areas where cats are prolific and where they have been removed, have proved that their presence has a large impact on rabbit populations. The Cat is also a heavy predator of rats and mice, but seldom takes birds.

Very little is known about the effects of removing large numbers of introduced animals. New Zealand tried it with feral cats and as a consequence suffered a fourfold increase in Rats. Rats are significant predators of birds and nests.

Tim Low of the Australian Museum says:
"Cats are just part of a complex picture of ecological collapse. By singling them out as scapegoats, we run the risk of blinding ourselves to the true threatening processes."

See also Tim Lowe's paper "Attack of the Savage Honey-Eaters".

Cats are blamed for killing the Eastern Barred Bandicoot in Victoria, but these animals flourish in Tasmania where there are many cats. It is widely believed that domestic cats feed into and maintain feral populations, but studies, including Paul Wagner's ongoing research, refutes this.

Throughout the classical world, the Cat was revered. However once the mediaeval church began its campaign against paganism, all that was changed. The Cat was associated with heathen Gods. The Cat must die. In 1250 the Inquisition launched a crackdown. Cats were persecuted, drawn and quartered and burned at the stake as witches in disguise. That was bad for the cat, but bad for the persecutors as well.

At that very time, a plague of rats bearing Bubonic Fleas spread across Europe. They carried the Black Death. Because numbers of cats were so diminished, there was nothing to stop the rats. By mid-14th Century, half the population of Europe had perished. Interference with an established balance of nature, is dangerous.

Animal Welfare Advisory Council

In 1993 The Animal Welfare Advisory Council (AWAC), the body which advises the Minister on animal welfare matters, after a search of the literature on cat predation and wide consultation, found that : the wholesale removal of the cat from the Australian environment (were it possible, which it is not) would very likely do more harm than good.

They said:
"It is considered by AWAC that the implementation of controls on feral cats may cause an imbalance in predator/prey and competitive predator relationship which may be particularly damaging to fragile ecosystems."

Bear in mind that 60 PER CENT of Australiažs native wild animals are predators. The Cat is one of these.