Australia has announced a five-year plan to rid the country of feral cats by killing them with a toxic gel in order to keep native species safe.
Feral cats are responsible for the extinction of over two dozen species in Australia and are severely impacting the survival of many others. The West Australia government debuted a plan on Tuesday that involves using a deadly new tool that will cull the invasive cat population.
"These feral cats are incredibly devastating on native animals," West Australia Environment Minister Reece Whitby said at a press briefing announcing the initiative, as reported by local news network ABC Australia. "We need to do something: this is a major increase in our activity. We're trying to give native species a fighting chance against this incredible, voracious predator."
Australia's solution to this problem is the Felixer grooming trap, which will spray the cats with toxic goo. The cats will then lick the gel off themselves—containing 1080 poison, or sodium fluoroacetate—poisoning themselves in the process.
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Felixers will be rolled out as part of the West Australian government's five-year feral cat strategy. This will include leasing 16 of the Felixers from their parent company Thylation using non-government conservation groups and Commonwealth grants, and placing them in areas where there are threatened species living.
The Felixers are solar-powered and use lasers and cameras to tell if a passing animal is a feral cat or not, only spraying them with the poison if they have the shape and gait of a cat. They work best in areas where lots of the cats pass through, like fence lines.
"In thousands and thousands of tests, it's been able to correctly identify a feral cat as opposed to a native animal," Whitby said
The Western Australian Feral Cat Working Group found that the Felixers are useful in areas where baiting and using firearms is inappropriate, but that they were expensive and not suited to use on a large scale.
The five-year feral cat strategy will also include baiting across the state where appropriate, increasing up to 880,000 baits annually, as well as increased funding for communities to help eliminate the cats.
How is making people catch them, bag them, ship them, and fight them to stab them with a needle more humane than they lick poison off themselves have a small fit and die?
Poison can be a miserable death. I don’t trust a tech bros cat-poison-bot to have a poison that doesn’t hurt like hell.
It’s a sad situation all around tbh. I just hope they find something that prevents cat-induced extinctions that’s as humane as possible while still getting the job of saving local species accomplished.