ROCK stars of the environment and conservation sectors came together from across Australia at the inaugural WA Feral Cat Symposium in Mandurah last week.
More than 200 people discussed tackling the complex issue of protecting WA’s native animals, through effective humane feral cat control.
Land clearing and feral cats remain the highest threats to biodiversity and while there are some success stories of isolated feral cat control, a landscape-scale solution is yet to be realised.
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READ NOWIt is estimated there are between 1.4 to 5.6 million feral cats across Australia – killing more than one million birds, one million reptiles and one million mammals every day.
Peel-Harvey Catchment Council chairman Marilyn Gray said it was a complex issue but the extinction of native animals must be stopped.
“By coming together to tackle this, with support from government, sound science, exciting new technologies and a collaboration across industry, I think for the first time in quite a while we feel hopeful about the future for our native animals ‘’ she said.
On the day after the symposium a smaller group of key stakeholders discussed the way forward.
It was unanimously agreed the establishment of a WA Feral Cat Taskforce be explored to remove the barriers to effective coordinated landscape-scale control of feral cats across WA.
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