“Nature’s interconnectedness rarely makes for punchy sound bites or bumper sticker aphorisms. Then, too, such complex relationships are often overlooked, ignored, or dismissed simply because they don’t fit cleanly into one’s argument.” ~ Peter J. Wolf: Vox Felina
We’re often hit with a left hook, right hook when it comes to cats in the Australian community. First, environmentalists screetching that cats are causing massive wildlife decline and should be eradicated. And second animal welfare groups bleating that cat owners are irresponsible masses, letting their cats roam and placing little value on their welfare.
Which all paints a pretty bleak outlook for cats.
But what we don’t see a lot of is actual science behind these claims. Certainly both sides have done a pretty good job of running down cats and their owners, but local studies on urban cat populations and owner behaviour are nearly non-existent. And without them, everything else is simply impassioned opinion.
When a researcher was engaged by the local shire of Armadale (WA) to examine the impact of cats on native animals in their community, the results would have been a no-brainer obviously. We all know cats are wiping out metropolitan wildlife, right?
Dr Maggie Lilith’s research, funded by the City of Armadale, Western Australia, has found that protecting and restoring the habitats of declining native wildlife may be more important than simply controlling where pet cats can go.
She said the whole ecosystem had to be considered when looking for ways of protecting native fauna.
“While there are numerous studies on feral cats and their impacts on declining native fauna, the impact of pet cats on suburban wildlife or fauna in remnant bushland is relatively unknown although there is a wide perception of risk,” Dr Lilith said.
“Our study in the City of Armadale showed no definitive evidence of predatory impacts from pet cats on small mammals.
“Mammal species diversity, richness and abundance were not significantly different between sites where cats were restricted.”
She said despite the popular perception that cats were the main problem in conserving small mammals, vegetation appeared to be a more important issue.
“The species’ richness and abundance appeared linked to groundcover density in the various sites,” Dr Lilith said.
“This factor, not cat restrictions, appeared to be the primary determinant of species’ richness, species’ diversity and absolute numbers of small mammals in these sites.”
Dr Lilith found what some of us had suspected; that there simply aren’t bilby’s living in supermarket carparks. And that if the first thing you do when building a new housing estate is knock down every single tree and shrub with bulldozers, then build roads and fences – your environment has more problems than cats.
But her findings actually go further than that:
(Dr Lilith) investigated the abundance and diversity of small mammals in four areas of remnant bushland around Armadale in eastern Perth.
Two areas were beside subdivisions where cat ownership was unrestricted, one next to a housing estate where cat ownership was banned and one beside a subdivision where a compulsory night curfew and bells on pet cats were enforced.
Dr Lilith found no evidence that pet cats had slashed the population of small mammals. Species diversity and abundance was virtually identical from subdivision to subdivision.
She found that the structure and species composition of vegetation differed between most sites. It was this factor, not cats, that appeared to be the main determinant of the richness, diversity and number of small native mammals.
There was no difference at all between the number of native mammals in places where cats were restricted and the number of native mammals in places where cats weren’t restricted. The existence of cats in the environment didn’t correlate with species loss; cats and the wildlife can live together, as long as we haven’t trashed the environment.
Across the state of WA, cat groups and environmentalists are salivating at the idea of extensive new cat restrictions (microchipping, confinement, desexing), but are doing so with a false belief that these will improve cat or wildlife outcomes.
Even if we agree that we need to manage cats and wildlife holistically; through improvements in native habitat and cat owner behaviour, this study (one of the only ones in existence in Australia) shows cat laws are a failure in achieving that aim.
Armadale Council chose to do the research and have since suspended their drive for more cat laws; a completely appropriate response to these findings. If you can’t put in place measurable goals and you can’t do a scale test which show benefit, then to push ahead is simply investing in failure. In layman’s terms – if it doesn’t work, don’t do it.
But what of these ‘irresponsible owners’ we hear so much about. Well, they researched them too;
… local residents were surveyed in regards to their attitudes and current cat husbandry practices.
The survey results showed a substantial proportion of respondents believed cat regulations were necessary – 75 per cent of owners and 95 per cent of non-owners.
Both owners and non-owners registered 70 per cent agreement or greater with the propositions that cats not owned by licensed breeders should be de-sexed, local councils should restrict the maximum number of cats that can be owned on one property and that pet cats entering nature reserves are harmful to wildlife.
Although fewer owners were prepared to keep their cats on their property at all times to protect wildlife, more than 80 per cent were willing to confine their cats at night if it was required.
Basically, that people like their cats, want to see an improvement in cat welfare outcomes and most already bring their cats in at night because they love them and want to keep them safe. What’s more, rather than being ‘irresponsible’, the majority of cat owners were concerned about any impact of their pets, and were receptive to requests that they keep their pets confined.
So the absolutely best outcome? Working together to improve the situation for cats AND wildlife. We can help people make provision to keep their cat safe indoors, while not condemning them or their pets. We can work to increase environmental sensitivity from developers, improve movement channels for wildlife (road crossings and bush spaces), without feeling like we must ‘eradicate’ every unowned cat from the environment to be successful. We can still work to decrease unowned cat populations in urban environments through humane methods (TNR) while recognising that those same urban environments are inhospitable to all but the most adaptable animals and that we humans are the cause of the loss of most diversity. We can have wildlife and cats – one doesn’t need to come at the cost of the other.
The full study can be downloaded FOR FREE here.
It would also be interesting to know whether people who have cats are also more inclined to have gardens with plants, rather than laying down concrete everywhere. If so, encouraging them to use native plants rather than imports that use extra water might be the way to go rather than getting rid of the cats.