>>Feral cats kill thousands of native animals every minute — now a controversial plan to use gene drive technology as a weapon against them is being considered by the Federal Government.

Conservation groups want cats that only produce male offspring to be released into the wild as a way to save native mammals, such as bilbies and bettongs, that are under attack.

The CSIRO is investigating the technology, which the Federal Government said could be a “powerful tool” subject to careful study.<<

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-31/gene-drive-technology-considered-in-the-fight-against-feral-cats/9817124?section=science

I sincerely hope if this thing goes ahead (sometime in the distant future) that they conduct extensive eradication programs to reduce cat numbers before adding more to the environment. This is such a long term strategy, but with eventual excellent results it should IMO be developed. However, with CSIRO’s expertise, I would be surprised if they could not come up with a short term plan much sooner to reduce the impact on many endangered species.

>Feral cats kill thousands of native animals every minute

Gee, that’s some cat. OK, I’m joking.

More seriously, how many feral cats were assumed in calculating that figure?

mollwollfumble said:

>Feral cats kill thousands of native animals every minute

Gee, that’s some cat. OK, I’m joking.

More seriously, how many feral cats were assumed in calculating that figure?

>>Australia’s feral cat population swings between about 1.5 million and 5.5 million, with more cats after heavy rain.<<

I would say that is quite a conservative figure.

PermeateFree said:

mollwollfumble said:

>Feral cats kill thousands of native animals every minute

Gee, that’s some cat. OK, I’m joking.

More seriously, how many feral cats were assumed in calculating that figure?

>>Australia’s feral cat population swings between about 1.5 million and 5.5 million, with more cats after heavy rain.<<

I would say that is quite a conservative figure.

That’s a heck of a lot. But it might be right ballpark. I found this link.

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/australian-feral-cat-population-millions-smaller-than-thought-20170104-gtlqce.html

That says that Australia’s feral cat population is 2.1 to 6.3 million. And popularly used figures of 15 to 20 million are wrong. Eg. Wikipedia’s 18 million is wrong.

Another website says using a conservative number of 4 million, each feral cat kills between 5 and 30 animals per day. I find it hard to accept 30 unless those 30 are insects.

Why not just introduce an animal to hunt the feral cats, what could possibly go wrong

Cymek said:

Why not just introduce an animal to hunt the feral cats, what could possibly go wrong

You mean, like a mosquito?

Web slowed to extreme crawl. Exiting now.

mollwollfumble said:

PermeateFree said:

mollwollfumble said:

>Feral cats kill thousands of native animals every minute

Gee, that’s some cat. OK, I’m joking.

More seriously, how many feral cats were assumed in calculating that figure?

>>Australia’s feral cat population swings between about 1.5 million and 5.5 million, with more cats after heavy rain.<<

I would say that is quite a conservative figure.

That’s a heck of a lot. But it might be right ballpark. I found this link.

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/australian-feral-cat-population-millions-smaller-than-thought-20170104-gtlqce.html

That says that Australia’s feral cat population is 2.1 to 6.3 million. And popularly used figures of 15 to 20 million are wrong. Eg. Wikipedia’s 18 million is wrong.

Another website says using a conservative number of 4 million, each feral cat kills between 5 and 30 animals per day. I find it hard to accept 30 unless those 30 are insects.

Frogs. lizards, small mammals, birds, etc., they add up and some cats are quite large animals.

> Conservation groups want cats that only produce male offspring to be released into the wild

Looks both slow and fairly ineffective to me.

I’ve heard of such measures being touted, for other species, do you know of any case where such a method has actually worked?

mollwollfumble said:

> Conservation groups want cats that only produce male offspring to be released into the wild

Looks both slow and fairly ineffective to me.

I’ve heard of such measures being touted, for other species, do you know of any case where such a method has actually worked?

No, only the Sterile insect technique where “insect pest control method involving the mass-rearing and sterilization, using radiation, of a target pest, followed by the systematic area-wide release of the sterile males by air over defined areas, where they mate with wild females resulting in no offspring and a declining pest population.” Which although effective, is does not completely solve the pest problem. With insects they can be sterilised en mass and released en mass without too much effort, but sterilising mammals using genetics is a very different matter.

https://www.iaea.org/topics/sterile-insect-technique

PermeateFree said:

mollwollfumble said:

> Conservation groups want cats that only produce male offspring to be released into the wild

Looks both slow and fairly ineffective to me.

I’ve heard of such measures being touted, for other species, do you know of any case where such a method has actually worked?

No, only the Sterile insect technique where “insect pest control method involving the mass-rearing and sterilization, using radiation, of a target pest, followed by the systematic area-wide release of the sterile males by air over defined areas, where they mate with wild females resulting in no offspring and a declining pest population.” Which although effective, is does not completely solve the pest problem. With insects they can be sterilised en mass and released en mass without too much effort, but sterilising mammals using genetics is a very different matter.

https://www.iaea.org/topics/sterile-insect-technique

Thanks.

Spotted this on the web.

Feral cats now cover 99.8% of Australia

Feral population of 2.1 to 6.3 million at a density of one cat for every 4 sq km.

Feral cat-free areas of Australia are limited to a few islands, of which 12 had feral cat populations until they were eradicated, and 16 fenced-in cat-free reserves.

Among the proposals being suggested by conservationists are rebuilding dense habitat, so small marsupials have “boltholes” to escape cats.

How about lantana and blackberry? Can they count as “dense habitat”? The guideline I like to use is that wildlife needs places where the vegetation keeps all humans out.

Suggestions that feral cats could be trapped, desexed, and rereleased as a method of population control were “crazy”, Dickman said, because you would have to desex at least 75% of the population to have an impact. That’s almost 5 million difficult-to-trap cats.

mollwollfumble said:

PermeateFree said:

mollwollfumble said:

> Conservation groups want cats that only produce male offspring to be released into the wild

Looks both slow and fairly ineffective to me.

I’ve heard of such measures being touted, for other species, do you know of any case where such a method has actually worked?

No, only the Sterile insect technique where “insect pest control method involving the mass-rearing and sterilization, using radiation, of a target pest, followed by the systematic area-wide release of the sterile males by air over defined areas, where they mate with wild females resulting in no offspring and a declining pest population.” Which although effective, is does not completely solve the pest problem. With insects they can be sterilised en mass and released en mass without too much effort, but sterilising mammals using genetics is a very different matter.

https://www.iaea.org/topics/sterile-insect-technique

Thanks.

Spotted this on the web.

Feral cats now cover 99.8% of Australia

Feral population of 2.1 to 6.3 million at a density of one cat for every 4 sq km.

Feral cat-free areas of Australia are limited to a few islands, of which 12 had feral cat populations until they were eradicated, and 16 fenced-in cat-free reserves.

Among the proposals being suggested by conservationists are rebuilding dense habitat, so small marsupials have “boltholes” to escape cats.

How about lantana and blackberry? Can they count as “dense habitat”? The guideline I like to use is that wildlife needs places where the vegetation keeps all humans out.

Suggestions that feral cats could be trapped, desexed, and rereleased as a method of population control were “crazy”, Dickman said, because you would have to desex at least 75% of the population to have an impact. That’s almost 5 million difficult-to-trap cats.

>>Among the proposals being suggested by conservationists are rebuilding dense habitat, so small marsupials have “boltholes” to escape cats.<<

It is very necessary to provide small animals with low dense vegetation so they can hide and escape the predators. Such habitat tends to be a fire hazard and more likely to be burnt out during bushfires or fuel reduction burns, but it must be persevered with to give them some hope of survival. I have seen dense blackberry providing suitable habitat for bandicoots and other small animals, so very good, but has the habit of spreading into farming areas, so not popular with some people. Not sure about Lantana, but it would need to be dense enough to keep cats and foxes out and being without thorns it might not be ideal.

>>Suggestions that feral cats could be trapped, desexed, and rereleased as a method of population control were “crazy”, Dickman said, because you would have to desex at least 75% of the population to have an impact. That’s almost 5 million difficult-to-trap cats.<<

Not sure what you would need to do there, but it is fraught with problems that will not be quick or easy to solve.

PermeateFree said:

mollwollfumble said:

> Conservation groups want cats that only produce male offspring to be released into the wild

Looks both slow and fairly ineffective to me.

I’ve heard of such measures being touted, for other species, do you know of any case where such a method has actually worked?

No, only the Sterile insect technique where “insect pest control method involving the mass-rearing and sterilization, using radiation, of a target pest, followed by the systematic area-wide release of the sterile males by air over defined areas, where they mate with wild females resulting in no offspring and a declining pest population.” Which although effective, is does not completely solve the pest problem. With insects they can be sterilised en mass and released en mass without too much effort, but sterilising mammals using genetics is a very different matter.

https://www.iaea.org/topics/sterile-insect-technique

I thought I’d heard such measures being touted for other species and have finally tracked it down.

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

The technique involves genetically modifying European carp so they can only have male offspring. The introduction of daughterless carp into a population will lead to an all-male population, and the species will eventually die out. The technique has been developed for the CSIRO for the control of invasive carp populations in Australia.

The project was conceived in 1995. Initial trials were conducted using zebra fish. Zebra fish were ideal candidates for initial trials as they are closely related to carp and have very short generation times. Zebra fish populations have been successfully converted to 100% males. Initial results indicate that the daughterless techniques works well in carp. Field trials may occur in isolated systems in Australia in the late 2010s. In practice, the other population control techniques such as introduction of koi herpes virus may be used in combination with daughterless carp to improve the effect.

More from the CSIRO invasive animals CRC