Jim Eagles: Face facts, cats are bad for the environment

There's great satisfaction to be had from planting vegetables at this time of year. The soil is moist and easily workable, the temperature is cool and ideal for physical work, and the rows of young sprouts, cabbages and lettuces seem to relish being out in the lovely autumn weather.

Unfortunately there's also great irritation to be had from coming out the next morning to find half the seedlings have been uprooted by some cat who decided the freshly turned soil would be a good place to excavate a lavatory and the other half flattened as a result of its post-toilet rest.

I've never understood why cats should be considered to have inalienable rights to roam as they please, catch birds as they wish, sing their love songs under any window that takes their fancy and do their business wherever they find convenient.

Yes, I realise that cats are free spirits and natural hunters, independent creatures who give their affection as it suits them, who cannot be pinned down or caged.

But I'm not sure that the fact they like to roam is all the justification required for them to be allowed to do it.

Furthermore, it seems no one has explained to them that with rights come responsibilities. If you want the right to wander at large then you have a responsibility not to abuse the privilege by, for example, digging up freshly-planted vegetable seedlings.

The situation with regard to cats is in sharp contrast to that of dogs. Dogs have no right to wander at large and if they do are likely to be arrested or even shot.

Even when performing their duties as guard dogs they are subject to very strict rules. I have some friends who are away from home all day and so bought a dog and built a 2m high fence to protect themselves from burglars. Unfortunately the other day an eager Jehovah's Witness missionary ignored the warning sign, forced the gate, got inside, was nipped by the dog and complained. As a result the dog is now on a final warning.

So, on the one hand a dog who bites someone who forces their way uninvited on to his property can be shot. But on the other hand, a cat has the right to wander onto my property and dig up my seedlings or kill the birds we've attracted to our garden. Seems a bit unbalanced.

Maybe dogs need a few more rights and cats need to learn a bit more about their responsibilities.

But, of course, I'm aiming at the wrong target here. Cats may be very smart but they probably aren't smart enough to be told to leave grumpy Mr Eagles' veges alone. I should be targeting the owners.

As ever, there is a vast number of responsible cat owners who exercise good care and control of their pets. But there is also a substantial minority who are anything but responsible. 

Do you know that last year the SPCA had to take in 38,900 cats and kittens who had been abandoned by their owners? And that is probably only the tip of the iceberg.

There are also hordes of feral cats - abandoned cats which have effectively gone wild - in cities and bush areas around the country. No one knows exactly how many feral cats there are in New Zealand but estimates go as high as three million.

All those cats - domestic and feral - take a huge toll on our declining population of native birds and lizards.

I don't imagine you'd find a single Kiwi who would want to see these native species wiped out. Yet when it comes to them being killed by moggies the cat lovers just smile benignly and say, "Oh, well, it's only natural for them to hunt birds."

That is probably what the Stephenson's Island lighthouse keeper said in 1894 when his cat wiped out the entire population of the island's unique wren.

To try to protect our native species, conservationists have created several predator-free areas where they set up a boundary ring of traps to catch the possums, stoats, ferrets and cats.

This work has proved very successful but it is constantly undermined by cat lovers. I've heard of passersby setting free feral cats trapped on the edge of a bush reserve because "cats are free spirits".

And, alas, cat owners continue to allow their pets to wander at large and continue to abandon them when it suits.

I recently visited the Trounson Kauri Park Mainland Island, in the Far North, where, thanks to predator control, you can now hear and often see kiwi at night.

But even after 10 years of trapping they are catching more and more cats. In 1996-97 23 cats were caught and by 2003-04, the figure was 84.

As Richard Gillies, the programme manager for the Department of Conservation, says, "We assume the cats we catch year in, year out, are part of a feral population ... but, clearly, they had to come from somewhere."

Equally clearly, if we want to preserve our native birds, something will have to be done about cats.

In Australia this problem is increasingly being combated by cutting back the previous freedoms cats have enjoyed but often abused.

In several states, cats are now required to be registered and to have microchips implanted so they can be identified and an animal that isn't registered is liable to be destroyed.

Furthermore, in many towns adjacent to conservation areas, there is a curfew on cats at night. Any cat found wandering after dark is likely to be shot. By all accounts that has been hugely beneficial to birdlife in the nearby bush. Cat owners here will obviously vigorously resist any such a suggestion.

But I can't see why it is so unreasonable to expect them to exercise proper control over their pets.

I've yet to hear a rational argument for cats to be allowed to wander off and kill rare birds just because they feel like it. And I've yet to hear a reasonable case for someone else's pet to be free to wander uninvited on to my property and dig up my seedlings.

* Jim Eagles is the Herald's travel editor