Cats have been in Australia a lot longer than anyone wants to admit, several hundred years before Captain Cook arrived. They are part of Australian wildlife and are endemic. Cats kill rats that spread disease, that's a cats job, that's what they are for. In western Australia there are many female ginger cats in the feral population, they descend from Dutch ship cats. Birds and other animals have had nearly 500 years to evolve.
"Bullshit" That was my first reaction too, but even if it was true it does NOT make the cat a native animal, and it is still a threat to the REAL native animals. ...and should be destroyed. OC
AFAIK, all those are introduced species too. And on the other side of the coin is the Bilby etc etc etc etc. OC
Australia has plenty of native rats and mice. Not saying that picture is a native rat, but I'm pretty sure cats are indiscriminate killers who don't care whether a rat is indigenous or not.
Its not like there is a huge shortage of possums. when i lived in melb my ridgeback used to kill 3/4 a week (with a bit of help)
I get all warm and fuzzy knowing that there is a spotted quoll out there somewhere feasting on blood of its small furry victims in order to make it strong enough to fornicate and to hunt, feast and fornicate again tomorrow. I'll probably never see it in my life and if I did it'll probably piss on my foot and bite me but it's nice to know it's there, you know? It's existence makes me happy like knowing that someone is playing with Lara Croft or Super Mario right now or is ranting about how crap Deep Space Nine is compared to Star Trek. Because this knowledge makes me happy I advocate for the complete extinction of any predatory animal that currently encroaches on the quoll's habitat and a 100km exclusion zone (including humans). If my plan is sucessful and populations increase but then they breed too much to the point that they want to extend their range beyond the exclusion zone then we should f**king shoot the selfish little fornicating bastards.