Dialogue: Pet-free people can help to enhance wilderness

ANN GRAEME says attempts to restrict cats and dogs are being made only where new housing subdivisions adjoin native wildlife areas.

Cats and dogs have been people's companions since the beginning of recorded history. No other species have chosen so to ally themselves with people, and no other species are better loved by people the world over.

But we should not cloud our affection with sentiment. Cats and dogs are predators. It is their nature to hunt. Well-fed cats do not need to hunt but many still respond to the age-old urge.

Even when he was old, our loved cat Rascal would bring home his prizes, guiltily, because he knew we would sometimes be angry. But bring them home he did - rats, mice, skinks, birds of many species, even baby ducklings.

Feral and stray cats have no choice. They have to hunt to live, and we can scarcely expect them to be choosy whether it's a rat or a fantail.

People have taken cats and dogs to nearly every country. Most countries have their own predators, but New Zealand is special. We have no native mammalian hunters. So many of our native species, particularly the flightless and ground-nesting birds, are vulnerable to cats, dogs, stoats, ferrets and the other predators we have introduced.

Most of us, with our cats and dogs, live in places where there are few native birds. However, fantails and tui seem to cope with some predation.

Bob Kerridge, of the Auckland SPCA, fears that cats may be subject to draconian legislation in an indiscriminate attempt to protect endangered wildlife species. This seems highly unlikely.

On only a handful of occasions has the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, supported by the Department of Conservation, sought restrictions on the keeping of cats and dogs. These have been when new subdivisions were proposed in remote places, in or beside native wilderness areas which were known to be home to vulnerable native species.

An example was a large forest block being subdivided high in the forested ranges of the Coromandel and adjacent to a sanctuary in the forest park. In the subdivision, strict covenants were already in place to protect the forest, which was home to a variety of native wildlife, including kiwis.

Kiwis are attractive to dogs. A dog can smell a kiwi a long way away, catch it and crush its delicate rib cage in the twinkling of an eye.

At the consent hearing, Forest and Bird applauded the protection of the forest. But why protect the forest and then bring in predators to destroy its wildlife?

Forest and Bird proposed that people would be attracted to this remote subdivision because they loved the forest and they would want to live with nature on its terms. They would be prepared to forgo the pleasure of having a dog or a cat. The subdivider agreed, and so a cat and dog-free subdivision was created.

Beach subdivisions are swallowing up the Coromandel peninsula and Northland coastline. The endangered New Zealand dotterel and the variable oystercatcher both nest on beaches, and particularly favour the sandspits where streams come out to the sea.

As people with their dune buggies and dogs and cats have moved on to these spits, the nests, mere scrapes in the sand, are destroyed and the number of birds becomes smaller and smaller.

Now the tips of sandspits are frequently made into reserves, and if the people in the neighbouring subdivision refrain from bringing in cats and dogs, a balance can be struck enabling the birds and the people to live together.

But what about the stoats and the rats and the hedgehogs already there? Of course, there will already be predators on the spit, even a stray cat eking out an existence, but that is no reason to add, say, 20 dogs and 60 domestic cats.

Only half the cats will hunt, says Mr Kerridge, but that is still 30 cats with nothing to do but stroll down to the sandspit for a dotterel chick. People bringing in cats and dogs will add to the predation already suffered by the birds. Soon no nests would manage to raise a chick, as is the case at Omaha.

But responsible, pet-free people could enhance rather than destroy their natural environment. They could befriend and find a home for the stray cat, and improve the survival of beleaguered beach birds.

Another scenario for a cat and dog-free subdivision might be beside a wetland, where the feebly flying fernbird, the banded rail and the bittern live. These ideas are being proposed for new rather than existing subdivisions, and only for very few.

So Mr Kerridge need have no fear for his pets. The efforts of conservationists are directed towards new incursions into the wilderness, to try to stay the relentless progress where the people come - and the wildlife dies.

* Ann Graeme, of Tauranga, writes the Kiwi Conservation Club magazine for the Forest and Bird Society.