Big cats banned from Australia
Making a mistake isn’t necessarily stupid, but making the same mistake twice is. Thankfully Australia has learned from its past and banned the introduction of Savannah cats, a natural destroyer of the country’s unique wildlife.
The humble ‘moggy’ or domestic cat maybe a cute little family pet to those in the rest of the world but to Australia’s wildlife it is a born killing machine. And once the cats have adapted to life in the wild they are even more devastating.
Simply put they are out of control across the country and just about eating everything in their path.
Feral cats have virtually no natural predators and have been wild in the country from at least 1850. Since that time they have helped to wipe out uncountable numbers of unique bird and animal species.
Feral cats also undermine just about every breeding program put into to place to try and build up Australia’s biodiversity when and where this is possible.
But as if this wasn’t enough some bright spark has had the idea of importing Savannah cats to Australia. This new breed of feline can grow up to 20 kilograms and is a cross between a normal cat and the wild African Serval.
The mind boggles to think of what devastation they could have inflicted on the Australia.
The good news is that earlier this month the importation of Savannah cats was banned by the federal government. But not before time. For some reason the Environment Minister felt he had to hold and inquiry on the subject? Surely he didn’t contemplate letting them in!
Thankfully the right decision has been made.
The other good news is that it seems I am not the only one who feels strongly about this. Of the 549 submissions received from the public 526 were against allowing the importation of these crazy cats.
But to think that someone tried… well, the mind boggles. It just shows that no matter how stupid we can be, there is always someone out there trying to go one better.
Photo credit: www.petsplayground.com.au
Pretty sure we have enough animals that can kill us already.
There was overwhelming opposition in Australia. Besides the 526 submissions against, there were 8600 on an online petition; 2000 in another paper petition and 36000 online votes against on an MSN poll. It was pretty encouraging that Australians value wildlife so much.
The importers displayed real ignorance of genetics, as did a number of scientists and the messybeast website mentioned above. Each generation of cats does not simply have half the serval genes of the previous generation, because breeders select for serval genes by selecting for the serval look. And they claimed escaped genes would dilute in the feral population - Darwin’s theory would indicate those genes would be selected.
This was a good decision for the environment.
What about the sterilized cats ?
They are no threat to the environment once they manage to escape their owners.
Uneducated diatribe if i may say so. Did you do any research before spouting your rubbish on the World Wide Web? This is a domesticated and hybridized version of a Serval and Domestic cat carried out in 1986, and pushed through all the rigmarole of the TICA board. Savannahs are considered one of the larger breeds of domesticated cats.
The Savannah, Bengal, or other African cats (you forgot all the Egyptian or Thai cat varieties that make up more than 50% of all the domestic cat stock) may not be as far removed from its ancestors as we humans are, but it’s still a mix of a near wild animal and a domestic cat. I don’t see you complaining about people who own a Chow Chow, Pekingese, Shih Tzu, Basenji, Alaskan Malamute or any there of the 14 ancient dog breeds which are as closely related to their ancestors as this hybrid cat that was bred for its looks not its hunger for native Australian marsupials that the foxes or dingo’s, or the suburbs haven’t had a go at yet…
I’m sure we all feel great that we can blame the cat for all the problems with our diminishing wildlife but no-one stops to think about feral dogs or feral humans. Instead of blogging rubbish like this your efforts should be better used towards stopping pet stores in shopping centres selling thousands of pets before Christmas to people who haven’t the skills or future desires to look after some of these animals.
If you want to help, off your Americanized fast food filled ass and do something more constructive about the environment and our wildlife. Alas, I’m sure you’re more likely to sell out the domestic cat instead of selling your car, turning off you’re A/C or doing anything substantial or constructive to help the environment.
Fantastic journalism; lacking an engrained sense of duty to the truth or to the readers.
All breeders of Savannah’s in Australia (offering kittens for 2009) sell only desexed amimals as pets. Your average joe walking through a shopping centre isn’t going to impulse buy a cute little savannah for his little darling at christmas to put in her handbag just to let it out for good in january for AU$5000 so there is no harm to the environment.
Therefore there is no issue on the environment from these breeds. If for example there were some inscrutable people out there trying to make a quick buck then i’m sure some breedable pets could get out and as stated above they would evole into the dominent species of ferral cats. But dont worry about that, they way things are going we’ll destroy the native bushlands with suburb expansion well before a few dozzen ferral cats become a problem.
I want to thank Justin (13th Aug) for pointing out that the photograph is not credited and in fact was taken from my website without permission of the photographer Kathrin Stucki. This then is a copyright violation
This gives me the indication that the author of this article is hypocritical and never, but never, addresses the root cause of the problem of feral cats, namely human behavior. It is time we stopped attacking the cat and looked a little harder at our behavior as we created the feral cat “problem”.
Lastly, there is no hard evidence the feral cat does the kind of damage to wildlife as stated here. Poor article lacking in thought.
Savannah breeders select for pattern and height (from the Serval) and for domestic temperament. The 50% (halving) of genes is an average across a generation, not an absolute. Even if one undesexed Savannah were to escape and breed, it does not necessarily follow that its descendents would breed only among themselves. Being outnumbered by normal size ferals, their genes would be swamped. This has been demonstrated time and again in mammalian populations around the world where the influence of introduced individuals over a period of time leaves no long term effect. Much of the “research” against Savannahs is taken from a comparison with an introduced fish. Mammals are not fish and cannot spawn hundreds of offspring at a time so the comparison is not valid.