Recently, according to foreign media reports such as CNN, the Australian government will kill approximately 2 million wild cats distributed in the country by airdropping poisonous sausages before 2020 to protect various rare native animals. Prior to...
Recently, according to foreign media reports such as CNN, the Australian government will kill approximately 2 million wild cats distributed in the country by airdropping poisonous sausages before 2020 to protect various rare native animals. Prior to this, Australia had taken various "cat eradication actions", but the effect was not obvious. Friends who like cats will definitely feel sorry for these 2 million wild cats when they hear this news.
However, while feeling sorry, you also need to understand these 5 issues.
1. Why are there so many wild cats in Australia?
Australia originally had no cats, or even any kind of cat species. The first cat in Australia is believed to have been brought by the British in the 17th century. Since then, in Australia, which lacks predators, cats have thrived in the wild and rapidly reproduced in the wild. In 2015, some "experts" estimated that the number of wild cats in Australia reached 18 million! However, this figure has been questioned by many people as being too high. Experts now estimate that there are 2 to 6 million wild cats living in Australia. In fact, although we call these cats "feral cats," they are the same species as domestic cats, and they are "domestic cats that live in the wild."
2. Why are there no native cats in Australia?
As we all know, cats are widely distributed on the earth, with branches in Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas. However, Australia, which has a land area of more than 7 million square kilometers, does not even have any "native" cats. According to the theory of continental drift, the absence of cats in Australia was caused by geological movements of the earth tens of millions of years ago.
When the Australian continent separated from other continents in Gondwana (also called the Southern Continent, including Africa, Antarctica, South America, the Indian Peninsula and other landmasses), cats had not yet formed. However, Australia has been "allocated" with many marsupials, and after tens of millions of years of evolution, many special species have been formed. Australia today is known as the "Marsupial Paradise".
3. Why does Australia kill wild cats?
As mentioned before, there were originally no cats in Australia. When domestic cats were brought to Australia, they transformed from cute pets into invasive species. You must know that an ecosystem is formed after thousands of years of evolution. Each species in it has experienced long-term competition, exclusion, adaptation, and mutual benefit. They are interdependent and restrict each other, which ultimately stabilizes the entire ecosystem. When cats came to Australia, where the ecosystem was relatively stable, they upset the balance.
Millions of wild cats pose a huge threat to Australia's native birds, reptiles, mammals, etc., and even directly eat some species into endangered species. If cats are not controlled, those animals in Australia that cannot defeat cats will sooner or later be eaten up, which will bring a huge ecological disaster to Australia.
4. Are the problems caused by invasive species easy to solve?
It is extremely difficult. In addition to cats, well-known invasive species in Australia include hares, foxes, etc. Among them, the number of hares reaches billions, which has also caused great damage to Australia's ecology. Throughout the world, countries or regions suffering from invasive species often have a headache, because these invasive species are easy to come but extremely difficult to disappear. Asian carps and fire ants living in the United States, Brazilian red-eared turtles living in China, and crayfish living in the United Kingdom...these invasive species multiply in large numbers. On the one hand, they crowd out local species in large numbers and put local species in trouble. On the other hand, they also cause huge economic losses (although some have great economic value in their places of origin).
It can be said that invasive species are like a disease that is extremely difficult to cure, and prevention is the key. 5.Whose fault is it that various species in Australia are being eaten by feral cats and are on the verge of extinction? The main fault is not with the cat. On the surface, the millions of wild cats living in Australia kill other wild animals without restraint and cause great damage to the local ecosystem. They seem to be "a heinous crime and deserve to die." But in fact, humans are the culprits that have caused various wild animals in Australia to become endangered. If humans had not brought cats to Australia hundreds of years ago, cats would not have overrun Australia, and native species would not have suffered such a devastating blow. Today, Australia spends a huge amount of manpower, material and financial resources to deal with the wild cat crisis. It can be said that it is paying for the mistakes made by humans in the first place.
