New Zealand’s best-known opponent of letting cats wander where they please is thrilled the government has stopped “pussyfooting” around the issue.<\/p>\n
Describing feral cats as “stone cold killers”, Conservation Minister Tama Potaka\u00a0told RNZ on Thursday\u00a0they would “join their buddies, stoats, ferrets, weasels – mustelids, rats and possums” on the official Predator Free 2050 hit-list.<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
The move comes\u00a0two years after\u00a0then-prime ministerial candidate Christopher Luxon promised they would be added, and 12 years after economist-turned politician Gareth Morgan controversially called for an end to all wandering cats – feral or domestic.<\/p>\n
The ‘Cats to Go’ proposal was widely criticised at the time and was dismissed by many as being a bit extreme.<\/p>\n
“The condemnation was absolutely universal,” Morgan told\u00a0Morning Report\u00a0on Friday.<\/p>\n
“I went from, according to\u00a0Reader’s Digest, the sixth-most trusted New Zealander that we had at the time because of my work on funds management, to the most-hated New Zealander, in a period of about six weeks – so it just showed you the intensity of the opposition.<\/p>\n
“But I think people misunderstand the issue. The issue is not anti-cat. The issue is anti-wandering cats, and feral cats are a big part of that crime family.”<\/p>\n
No-one knows just how many feral cats there are in New Zealand.\u00a0Estimates range from 2.5 million to 14 million.<\/p>\n
Morgan said the government’s move was “better late than never”, but still did not go far enough.<\/p>\n
“Cats wander to kill – they don’t wander for the exercise. So feral cats are just part of this greater crime family that’s out there killing New Zealand wildlife.<\/p>\n
“Wandering cats are the issue. Feral cats are a subset of that. So the next step is to deal with domestic cats that are let out wandering.<\/p>\n
“The only cat that should be protected is the cat in the lap, the one that you own, and the plea, I think, from rational people, is keep it to yourself.”<\/p>\n
Morgan suggested previous prime ministers’ cat ownership –\u00a0John Key’s Moonbeam\u00a0and\u00a0Jacinda Ardern’s ill-fated Paddles, for example – got in the way.<\/p>\n
But he praised Key and the National-led government of the time for creating the predator-free goal in the first place, and for extending it to cover some cats.<\/p>\n
“I think we can all be forgiven for being a bit ecstatic for achieving this step, even though it’s just one small step with respect to cats.”<\/p>\n
He doubted however the hit-list would be extended to cover wandering domestic cats.<\/p>\n
“Oh, no, it’ll be another 12 years of intensive lobbying because the opposition to this is entrenched.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand’s best-known opponent of letting cats wander where they please is thrilled the government has stopped “pussyfooting”…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-146601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}