Control of cats

Press, 26 August 1977, Page 12

Control of cats

Sir, —Can you confirm that the Internal Affairs Department is going to infect cats on Little Barrier Island with feline enteritis? Knowing what a vicious and distressingly painful disease feline enteritis is, I find it hard to believe that man can be so cruel to animals. This illness is a slow killer, and anyone who has seen a cat with it can only be horrified that such a means can even be thought of being used. All animal lovers should protest against this inhuman “solution” to a difficult problem. —Yours, etc., MISS S. BROOKS. August 15, 1977.

[Mr G. R. Williams, director of the Wildlife Service, Department of Internal Affairs, replies: “The Wildlife Service has been engaged in trying to exterminate feral cats on Little Barrier Island because of the threat to birds, particularly two species of petrel, one of which, if not protected from cats, is likely to be extinct within five years. The service has made every effort to find the most practicable, effective, and humane method of eliminating cats which, unfortunately, must suffer because of the

thoughtlessness of our predecessors in liberating them there. Little Barrier Island is one of the most important bird sanctuaries in New Zealand and has considerable international importance because another rare species endemic to New Zealand, the stitchbird, now occurs only on that island. Experience has shown that, on an island as large and as rugged as Little Barrier, no one method of trying to exterminate cats will succeed. Wildlife officers—who are as humane as anyone else—can find no alternatives to using such methods as poisoning, trapping, hunting with dogs, or using a suitable disease; none of these meets the ideal we have been seeking, of being relatively free of suffering for the cats. The matter has been discussed with the Royal Federation of the N.Z. Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; it cannot see any alternative to the methods proposed. The Wildlife Service is sympathetic to the views of your correspondent. Wildlife officers charged with carrying out this thankless task will do what little they can to avoid inflicting unnecessary suffering.”!