Encouraging malevolence and a lack of compassion towards animals in Australia’s young people, is a new game developed by Feral cat hunter Tony Munnings and students from the University of Tasmania. ‘Feral Cat Hunter’ is “aimed at six to seven year-olds” and sees players track cats down, centre them in a gun sight and kill them.
Compelling young children to demonise and commit violence against a common neighbourhood animal has serious negative implications for pet owners. If you would like to register a complaint the app can be found here and the Apple complaints form here.
I included the following information with my complaint…
This app encourages violence towards cats – one of Australia’s most popular pets.
While the developers are calling the animals in the game ‘feral’, children of the target age (6-7years) are unlikely to make the distinction, putting people’s pets at risk of real-life abuse.
Please consider removing this app from your store.
disgusting! How cruel!!! Karma may right the wrong!
Hey! My App!
This was a project undertaken by 6 of us students for our final year of our computing degree as is required to complete the degree. The client, along with other clients, with other projects, provided the project to the uni for us students to complete, no funding was provided.
Don’t worry, we made the game knowing that pet lovers would react pretty adversely, especially seeing how the project co-ordinator, and high ranking official of the computing society, was a pet lover herself. So we kept the “guns” and “violence” to as bare of a minimum as possible, throughout the game, the player is provided with raw facts on the destruction that feral cats cause to our native flora and fauna, and how they can help the situation.
As animal lovers, one would have thought the you guys would be just as concerned, if not more so, about our native critters.
Anyway, I’m sorry that you guys took offence, we’ll look into ways of further toning down the “malevolence”, and enforcing that the player is actually helping our great nation.
Kind regards,
Cody, Lead Animator.
PS. Thanks for the free advertising.
If you truly had intentions of “teaching” kids about the damage that feral cats do and encourage them to do something about it why in the world would you encourage them to KILL them? Why not design a game that catches the cats and then sends them to be steralized? Killing the freakin cats is not going to fix the problem if they are just able to continue to reproduce. Organizations can, and in some places do, come together to catch the feral cats, have them steralized and the release them. Over time the population declines and will eventually be gone due to not reproducing. All of this can be implemented into a game for children as well; providing a positive outcome for both the children and the cats.
Hello Cody,
You are being advertised as being a dickhead, along with other staff.
You clearly don’t understand the development levels of the age group this game is aimed at.
If you want to protect Aussie wildlife, please develop a game where people can hunt down developers in affluent suburbs, badly planned suburbs and consign them to an impoverished life on a farm where they do not plan to build Macmansions on Koala or Bilby habitats, or where humans cooperate to build cities in deserts instead of clearing forests around major river systems. Or an app where politicians are hunted down and imprisoned for legalising the culling of kangaroos and dingos to appease cattle and sheep farmers. Or an app where the brainiacs who introduced the likes of rabbits, cane toads, goats, pigs, European carp and Gambusia to this nation have to manually catch them and row a boat full of them back to the lands of their origin.
But quit pretending that you are innocently protecting wildlife by teaching children to kill cats and stop being so patronising while you are at it. It’s just a really poor choice due to your team not thinking it through or understanding children/violence so just learn from it, withdraw it or modify it from feline to human developer, and move on. You are computer nerds, not environmental scientists or human behaviourists. You imagined a simple solution to a complex environmental problem and got it wrong.
The use of the term “computer nerd” is a tad insulting – anyone can make an app these days… EVEN students from the University of Tasmania!
Helen – Great response that accurately addresses the major threats to wildlife.
First of all, kudos for a polite reply.
Secondly, maybe you can make a “Feral Cat Hunter 2” in which TNR is practiced instead. Of course we’re all worried about the feral cat population, for the cats and the wildlife. But studies have shown that killing is not the answer. It creates a sort of vacuum effect where more cats come in to take up the resources that the killed cats were using. By TNRing, animals continue to consume resources but no longer reproduce and add to the problem. By reaching (I don’t remember the number… 80%? 90%?) of cats neutered, the population stabilizes then begins to decrease.
From a logistics point of view, you could even start trapping and euthanizing at that point. But it doesn’t do any good to take cats out of the population when more will just take their place in a few months.
Moral issues aside, it does sound like a fun game. Not worth $2 for me though.
You are deeply disturbed if you think that this app in anyway aides over native wildlife. This is not an educational program; it is a game for sickos, plain and simple!
Having watched the ABC News report (available here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-30/new-phone-app-targets-feral-cats/5127006) I came to ponder: downloads in places as far of as Russia and the US – yeah, I bet those people really care about Australian wildlife and want to educate themselves about the “feral cat problem” we have here! More likely they just want to kill cats – because killing cats is fun!
Good work, kid. You should be really proud.
Cody, is it? What an insensitive brat you are. It might interest you to know that the figures regarding the so-called impact of feral cats on wildlife are vastly inflated. So your facts are wrong. Humans are way more destructive. Why not make a game where people shoot and kill you? It would make as much sense. No, you are clearly just another aggressive, immature and downright stupid male, looking for any excuse to hurt animals. And I can’t wait for iTunes to remove your app.
Nice civil response Cody.
I wonder how many people on here are actually talking about this without actually playing the game.
To those who have thank you for your purchase and you are entitled to your opinion.
To those who haven’t, maybe actually come up with your own opinion instead of being disrespectful and misinformed without actually playing what are upset about.
I’m appalled with some of the comments on here for example; ” You are being advertised as being a dickhead” and “What an insensitive brat you are.”. You really think that such behavior is a good example for your own children? If you’re upset with something why not have a civilized discussion about it with the people you are upset with?
I’d also like to point out that every fact that was put into this app was researched. Unlike most of what has been put on here (please feel free to put up a link to your “study that shows that killing is not the answer” and “creates a sort of vacuum effect where more cats come in to take up the resources that the killed cats were using.”). I’d also like a link to these organisations that “come together to catch the feral cats, have them sterilized and the release them.”. We are talking about feral cats in the Australian wild here, not your suburban stray cat.
As Cody said, we are all sorry that you took offence. I however, take offence to misinformation and name-calling. Please cite your info and be respectful.
Nick,
Lead Designer of Feral Cat Hunter
This is outragagous
As a parent I am appalled
This should be banned
Cats are domestic pets and some of us are raising kids to be responsible caring oet owners
No wonder I keep all our cats contained
What a disgusting app……encouraging kids to kill…..I feel sick
Such irresponsible behaviour. .. setting children up for criminal charges and also to be serial killers-in-training. …
How can this be a positive influence on children?!? The killing of ANY animal is horrific but to encourage to kill something that is so accessible (particularly when they get older), is nothing short of barbaric. It’s disgraceful that this was even allowed to be developed and those involved should be ashamed of themselves. Try making such games that teach compassion to animals rather than utter cruelty!
This inhumanity has to stop!
Being a pet owner has absolutely nothing to do with being outraged about this “game”. Being a morally responsible human being has.
You claim you want to protect Australian fauna by teaching children to kill living being in a slow and incredibly painful manner. What about when they go out and do it in real life and they happen only to come across the neighbour’s old cat sunbaking in the driveway? Is it ok for them to torture and kill it? What if the kids having set their minds on having a fun day out killing cats, can’t find any and all the come across is a possum or a kangaroo joey whose mother has been hit by a car? Surely since killing animals is such a fun game, it doesn’t matter if they can’t find any cats.
Did you know that serial killers like Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer started out by torturing small animals?
iTunes ARE listening. Please do take the time to give them feedback…
“I understand that you want to remove the app “Feral Cat Hunter”, from iTunes Store, as it is Offensive. I know how eager you are to get this app removed from App Store. Let me help you with this.
Michelle, thank you for reporting this. I forwarded your feedback to our review team. We take the quality of App Store content seriously. We’ll investigate this item…”
Terrible cruel and bad taste. Killing cats is not a game!
For Apple to allow this app is condoning this type of behaviour and casts a very negative shadow on a corporation that has had more than it’s share of controversy. As a corporation constantly striving for improvement in all areas, the removal and blockage of this app from your products would be a strong signal to the public which supports Apple products that your corporation will do the right thing.
I do not condone children playing a game where they kill cats.
Really??? You are teaching 6-7 year olds to be killers……… at that age, of course children are not going to know the difference between a feral cat and a domestic pet, so you are encouraging them basically to kill animals if sighted on the assumption, they may be a feral.
Shame on you!!! I understand the native wildlife is at risk for feral cats and other animals, but this does not condone a computer game to enhance future ‘potential’ abusers/killers/murderers/mentally unbalanced individuals in the making. Instead of a killing game, why not actually encourage a trap/tag method or something relatively along those lines.
This is disgusting encouraging children to become violent towards cats our domestic animals im appalled at this game whats the world and ppl coming too………targeting 6/7 year olds as well take this disgusting game down or im going to current affair this is so so wrong
Totally shameful “GAME”! A terrible thing to be teaching children!
If a teacher or anyone showed my kids something like this, I would not be happy. Parents grand parents I personally would be very cautious about letting my kids any where around this. NO WAY!!
Thanks for listening to our request to remove this site, we are very concerned of the message this “game ” is sending. lets remember that people that enjoy harming animals will also harm you and your family, this is a proven fact, yes feral cats are a problem (caused by people) but killing them is tragic and not entertainment.
I fail to see the value in any ‘game’ that teaches anyone, especially young children, to kill an animal. I think the ‘developers’ took the lazy way out instead of sitting down and putting some real thought into what they were doing and the effect of their app. I find this all the more appalling in that it’s directed at 6-7 year olds. It should be withdrawn immediately and the developers should use their brains in concert with some common sense to develop a better way to deliver their message.
What a sick man! Children are the future, and they need to know compassion. They also need to know the difference between a game a reality. I mean it is most likely easy to do when it is pretend.
I thought that Australia was a pretty progressive country but now I am having second thoughts. The creators of this “game” are a bunch of a**holes as far as I am concerned. They make up a game for young children, in which a common and beloved type of household pet is killed for fun, and then act like they are surprised when animal-lovers get upset. No kidding, feral cats are a problem, here in the U.S. as well. Here we have groups that trap, neuter and return the animals to their environment. And also, semi-ferals and ferals are good to have around for farmers, when rats and mice create a problem by getting into feed bins and contaminating and destroying horse and cattle feed. Anybody who would create a game for children in which cats are purposely hunted down and killed is seriously mentally ill, as far as I am concerned. And good for you Cody, I got a laugh when you say “thanks for the free advertising”. Sure, buddy, you have advertised yourself as a total a**hole and imbecile, all the way to the other side of the world, here in the U.S.A.
Lets all remember this game has a 9 plus rating, feral cats are a introduced pest killing 75 million native animals per night in Australia. Your domestic cat is your responsibility to de sex, microchip and contain so they don’t kill our native species that is what we are trying to teach all that play the game. If you took the time to play and read all that is in game i am sure you posts would be different .Feral cat hunters can reduce feral cat population by 75% before 2025 Also with cat legislation 75% of unwanted and stray cats cheers tony
Firstly, you’re using a flimsy, largely made-up stat (’75 million’) and to boot, you’re using it incorrectly.
Firstly, cats don’t target natives exclusively – the majority of the animals they eat (if they’re not urban strays relying on human handouts or rubbish) are other introduced species; mice, rats, rabbits, and to a much lesser degree, birds.
The role cats play in maintaining introduced species varies from location to location – a fact I’m sure you’re aware of – and a ‘shoot em up’ game with a goal of ‘extermination’ can only fail to acknowledge these nuances.
The 75 million you depend on so heavily for justification, is largely made up of other introduced species that would need to be poisoned with dangerous, human developed toxins if it weren’t for this so-called ‘unnatural’ balance.
(See Macquarie Island for a great example of the environmental damage caused by cat killing/prey poisoning programs – http://www.savingpets.com.au/2010/10/this-is-going-awesome/)
Secondly, even if the ’75 million’ were accurate, not all predation is linked with extinction. Many native animals have high breeding rates and are in no danger of becoming endangered. Having their populations trimmed by whatever means (car, predator, illness, injury) is normal and largely natural. In this instance, an obsession with ‘cats’, in an environment filled with hazards, is myopic and unjustified.
(While ‘hunters’ as a method of feral animal control has been dismissed as laughable by the majority of scientific organisations – they simply cause more problems – environmental, social, driving animals to other locations and failing to get anywhere near to killing enough of the population to manage populations – than they solve.)
…..
But all of these details are completely irrelevant to the debate being had here.
The issue with this app isn’t whether cats should be managed – it is whether an app aimed at children, and whose primary function is promoting violence against cats, is useful, or going to cause enormous harm.
Unless most of the children targeted by your company live rural – which I highly doubt – what you are essentially promoting is violence against cats to children whose only contact with cats will be people’s pets.
The ‘educational’ aspects of this app could have been achieved without the use of a gun sight – but despite what is claimed, that’s not the actually the point. ‘Education’ is just a flimsy excuse to promote and justify animal violence by a business founded on animal violence. And these university students have fallen for the ruse…
Not good enough Nick and Cody. You are thoughtless and I HOPE you were not paid for your app.
I hate people that doing this horrible thing :( I LOVE CATS
How can anyone think this is a funny game at all … Idiots