Good Bye Puddycats

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dubbleyew eight
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Good Bye Puddycats

#1 Post by dubbleyew eight » Sun Dec 20, 2015 12:31 pm

Australia is to cull an estimated 2 million escaped and feral cats, I noticed in the paper.
it is estimated that 75,000 native animals are killed each day across Australia by bloody cats.

about bloody time the country addressed the potential extinction of some quite unique little animals.

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Re: Good Bye Puddycats

#2 Post by 500N » Sun Dec 20, 2015 1:08 pm

2 million won't even put a dent in the population.

About time they did something, it's out of hand out there.

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Re: Good Bye Puddycats

#3 Post by Pinky the pilot » Mon Dec 21, 2015 1:17 am

Indeed. I will never forget seeing a feral cat on the Cordillo Downs Station,(Way outback Queensland) several miles from the nearest permanent waterhole. And this was back in the mid 80's.
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Re: Good Bye Puddycats

#4 Post by 500N » Mon Dec 21, 2015 1:22 am

The last wild puddy cat I shot was eating a very brightly coloured parrot it had taken from it's roosting spot in a low bush.
You are right, they seem to get most mositure from what they eat.

BTW, they reckon that the number of native animals killed by cats each day is a hell of a lot higher than 75,000.
More like well over the million mark. And that is NATIVE animals, doesn't include Mice, Rats etc.

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Re: Good Bye Puddycats

#5 Post by dubbleyew eight » Mon Dec 21, 2015 10:00 am

australia's little native animals and birds seem to have a simple defense mechanism.
they stay away from other animals.
so that means that as feral animals increase they just get crowded out or get eaten alive.

foxes, cats and bloody rabbits I just love removing from the gene pool.
we often saw goanas on the airfield but they periodically vanished. I found that foxes were eating them.
so now I am merciless with a .22.
we have to give our little native animals some sort of a fighting chance.

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Re: Good Bye Puddycats

#6 Post by 500N » Mon Dec 21, 2015 11:22 am

I know the people who are involved in setting up the fenced areas to rehabilitate rare animals / marsupials - I think one is in South Australia.

Foxes are bad but the cats are just damn hard to get, especially the last few.

Foxes, even the most wiley one can be got. I have yet to have one get away for good, even ones
that have been shot at by others before (and missed) and have become sheep killers, they eventually
succumb to one of the temptations - mainly food and then bang.

Cats on the other hand are a PITA to not only find but get close to and get a shot off.

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Re: Good Bye Puddycats

#7 Post by Hydromet » Tue Dec 22, 2015 10:26 am

I think they've probably been there since the late 1800s, feral cats were up there in the mid 70s when I first worked up that way, and bloody big they were, too. I think they've probably been there since not long after the first settlement in the north of SA.
When we lived just out of Tumut, I'd always catch a few strays, not ferals but family moggies, dumped when the family went away for the school holidays. They didn't last long.

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Re: Good Bye Puddycats

#8 Post by 500N » Tue Dec 22, 2015 10:29 am

"bloody big they were, too."

Yes, the size of some of the wild cats just beggars belief.

They are huge and full of muscle.

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Re: Good Bye Puddycats

#9 Post by Pinky the pilot » Wed Dec 23, 2015 1:32 am

but family moggies, dumped when the family went away for the school holidays.


And I hold in the deepest contempt anyone who does such a thing with any Pet! X( X(
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Re: Good Bye Puddycats

#10 Post by Fliegenmong » Sun Jan 03, 2016 10:29 am

I remember getting 'pounced' on by a feral cat in the mid 70's....Cousin and I were walking down a grassy hill and the lil fecker jumped out from behind a tussock of grass, scratched me up and took off........should be culled and used in Vietnamese restaurants
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Re: Good Bye Puddycats

#11 Post by reddo » Fri Jan 08, 2016 9:00 pm

DNA analysis show cats have been in Australia for about 1,000 years. Being of desert origin, they have adapted rather well to the Australian way of life... All these cute little critters to munch.

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Re: Good Bye Puddycats

#12 Post by Stoneboat » Sun Jan 31, 2016 10:23 pm

Geez, don't tell whassiname, dirigible...zeppelin...airship.

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Re: Good Bye Puddycats

#13 Post by Slasher » Sat Oct 08, 2016 1:39 am

..should be culled and used in Vietnamese restaurants


Yeh but the Chinese (Sichuan Provence especially) cook up cats very well. Yum yum!

There was a chance many yonks ago in my early youth while rooing that I could've blown away a feral cat. I came upon him by chance in the bushes while he was chewing on something feathered and still kicking. He looked at me in the eyes and I looked at him for a moment...

I suddenly realized he was just trying to keep himself alive and in one piece as I did growing up in a sh!tty rough part of town where we were classified as trash of the lowest middle class. Both me and him were merely victims of fate and circumstance and that's just the way life worked out whether we liked it or not.

I let him live.

Bagged 2 roos that day!

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