In a nation of cat lovers, it was a decision New Zealand’s political leaders had long put off.
However, that changed on Thursday with the announcement that feral cats would finally be added to the government’s official hit list of invasive species it is seeking to eradicate by 2050.
Describing feral cats as “stone-cold killers”, the conservation minister, Tama Potaka, said they would “join their buddies” stoats, ferrets, weasels, rats and possums on the Predator Free 2050 list.
Tama Potaka
HAGEN HOPKINS/GETTY IMAGES
He said the apex predators were responsible for killing birds, bats, lizards and insects and will now be targeted as part of a government-sanctioned extermination programme.
“In order to boost biodiversity, to boost heritage landscape and to boost the type of place we want to see, we’ve got to get rid of some of these killers,” he told the public broadcaster, RNZ.
The decision has been billed as a change of tack by the centre-right coalition government, led by the prime minister, Christopher Luxon.
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He had promised to include feral cats on the hit list during a leader’s debate in 2023 but was thought to have shied away from the commitment amid fears of a public backlash in a country where almost half of households are cat-owners.
The Predator Free 2050 list was conceived in 2016 as part of a major conservation initiative to protect native species, introduced by Luxon’s National Party predecessor Sir John Key. The goal was to provide funding and strategy at a national level to exterminate invasive predators responsible for wiping out native bird, reptile and invertebrate populations.
Since its inception, only possums, rats and mustelids — stoats, ferrets and weasels — have featured on the list. But conservationists complained that feral cats, arguably the most destructive predator of them all, had been a glaring omission.
Many New Zealanders had baulked at the idea of culling cats like common pests
ALAMY
It is legal to kill feral cats in New Zealand, as they are not a protected species and considered a pest. Killing, typically by trapping and shooting, must be done humanely.
Many local authorities already have their own cat-extermination programmes, but residents are often forced to take matters into their own hands. Some communities in rural areas even hold controversial feral cat hunting competitions, with children allowed to take part.
Cats were brought over to New Zealand in the late 1700s by European settlers, who used them to hunt rats and mice aboard sea vessels. Since then, they have spread across the country. Today, New Zealand’s feral cat population is estimated at anywhere between 2.4 million and 14 million.
In New Zealand, as around the world, they have been linked to the extinction of several species of native bird, the most famous being the flightless Lyall’s wren.
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In an effort to persuade successive governments to add them to the extermination list, conservationists have reeled off stories about their killing prowess, including a cat in Canterbury caught with 17 skinks — a reptile — in its stomach and another animal that killed 107 bats in a week.
But successive governments have resisted this pressure, conscious that New Zealand has one of the highest rates of cat ownership in the world. There are an estimated 1.2 million domestic cats and more than four in ten households own at least one. As a result, many New Zealanders have baulked at the idea of exterminating cats like common pests.
In recent years, though, public opinion appears to have shifted. A survey commissioned by the Predator Free New Zealand Trust last year found that 64 per cent of New Zealanders backed measures to actively reduce feral cat populations on public conservation land.
The confirmation that feral cats would finally be added to the list has been backed by conservation groups.
Jessi Morgan, chief executive of the trust, said it was “the right decision for New Zealand” and argued public opinion had changed.
Referring to a popular hospital-based soap opera on New Zealand TV, she said: “There’s an understanding that feral cats are a completely different kettle of fish to the cats that are sitting on your lap at night watching Shortland Street with you.”